In accordance to a up to date interview he did with The Hollywood Reporter, Kushner’s first concept when the famend director first approached him with the theory to remake “West Side Story,” was once “you might be from your thoughts.” He at the beginning informed his husband, “I will be able to’t call to mind anything else tougher, and I am hoping [Spielberg] drops it.” However Spielberg endured and made Kushner “very eager about one of the most issues he was once telling me,” ultimately convincing Kushner to alternate his thoughts.
Kushner elaborated, “Steven has an actual knack for working out the place the fault traces in society are, what is within the zeitgeist at the moment, what are other people interested in. And the inclusiveness this is on the middle of the American democratic experiment and willingness to make bigger the franchise and the giant significance of multiculturalism to the American democratic experiment — those are all in point of fact close to and expensive to Steven’s middle and to mine.” He added, “It is an anti-racist, democratic musical.”
Kushner additionally sought after to steer clear of the similar kind of grievance of colorism that Lin-Manuel Miranda confronted after “Within the Heights” debuted, insisting that Anita be portrayed through a Black Latina actor. He added, “I might hope that after Nuyoricans or Puerto Ricans have a look at the neighborhood that we created within the movie, it’s going to glance to them like a 1957, Higher West Side, Nuyorican neighborhood and that the Sharks generally will really feel original.”