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Steven Spielberg’s West Side Story: First look at the cast revealed

The first image from Steven Spielberg’s film adaptation of West Side Story has been released, showing Baby Driver star Ansel Elgort and newcomer Rachel Zegler in the lead roles as Tony and Maria, respectively.

Rita Moreno – who won an Oscar for her performance as Anita in the 1961 movie adaptation of West Side Story – is set to return to play a new character, Valentina, that has been created especially for her.

Valentina owns the corner store where Tony works (originally this was a role held by the character Doc). Moreno is also serving as executive producer on the project.

The leader of the Jets, Riff, will be played by Tony-nominated Mike Faist, with the rest of the gang including Anybodys (Ezra Menas), Mouthpiece (Ben Cook), Action (Sean Harrison Jones) Baby John (Patrick Higgins).

David Alvarez will play Maria's brother Bernardo – leader of rival gang the Sharks.

Other members of the Sharks gang will be played by the following: Quique (Julius Anthony Rubio), Chago (Ricardo Zayas), Chino (Josh Andrés Rivera), Braulio (Sebastian Serra) and Pipo (Carlos Sánchez Falú).

The movie is not expected to be an exact retelling of the 1961 offering, so Moreno's newly created character may not be the only Spielberg addition we see in his adaptation.

West Side Story is scheduled to be released in cinemas during the Christmas holidays, 2020.