Peals of laughter ring out from the room where the dazzling, diminutive Rachel Zegler is having her portrait taken as winner of the best musical performance prize at the 2025 Standard Theatre Awards, for her revelatory turn as Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice’s Evita at the Palladium. “She’s just an angel,” says her co-star and guest for the evening, Diego Andres Rodriguez, himself nominated in the emerging talent category for his role as Evita’s interlocutor, Che. “I’m New York-based now but I will come anywhere to support her. Write that down.” I do. When people put their faith in the 24-year-old US actor, other people listen.
When Zegler and I sit down on a gold sofa, it’s clear she is every inch a star, but also exuberantly natural and charming. She jokes she’s afraid of knocking over one of the many artworks in the 18th-century house (“one of us isn’t getting out of here alive”). Of her award she says simply: “Oh. My. God. It feels just out of the ordinary. I can’t believe it. I never thought that I would be recognised in such a way, for something that I put so much of my heart and soul into. It’s been such a journey to get to a place to be celebrated.”
