Elgort is the new Tony

THE STEVEN SPIELBERG interpretation of classic musical and romance West Side Story has Ansel Elgort ( below) of Baby Driver, The Fault in Our Stars and the Divergent saga playing its lead character, street gang-associated Tony.

With its movie screenplay written by Oscar-nominated Spielberg collaborator Tony Kushner ( Lincoln), filming on West Side Story is to get underway in mid-2019.

West Side Story, itself inspired by William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, made its Broadway debut in 1957 from a collaboration between Stephen Sondheim, Leonard Bernstein and Arthur Laurents, while a 1961 film following shortly after.

Perhaps remarkably, given the play and film’s iconic and criticallyacclaimed nature – the movie cleared up at the Academy Awards with 10 Oscars and an Honorary Award, while the 1958 play collected two Tonys – this is the first remake and is expected to stick with a 1950s time period.

Elgort, best known as an actor, also has a career as a remixer, songwriter and singer (his single, Supernova, was released in January this year), and an early childhood background in dance.

As Tony, he plays a young man whose closest buddy is the leader of a neighbourhood gang called the Jets.

Tony and a local girl called Maria meet and begin to fall in love, despite the differences that are supposed to keep them apart.

Casting notices circulated in January indicated that Spielberg was looking for Spanish-speaking actors and actresses to fill three other leading roles: Tony’s girlfriend Maria, her best friend Anita, and her brother (and leader of rival gang The Sharks) Bernardo. – AFPRelaxnews