“It was awful,” Mike Faist, who is earning raves for his reinvention of Riff in Steven Spielberg’s West Side Story, says of watching the film for the first time. As he tells Vanity Fair’s Katey Rich, Faist saw the movie this fall with a select crowd, having been brought in by Spielberg, producer Kristie Macosko Krieger, and Disney reps for a screening alongside costars Rachel Zegler, Ansel Elgort, Ariana DeBose, and David Alvarez. Suffice it to say, he was feeling the pressure.
“It was an awful feeling because this is what happened: We’re on the Fox lot, we’re in the Zanuck Theater, which is a pretty big theater, and there’s only five of us in it,” Faist explains. “You’re just so nervous. I think you have, like, I don’t know, expectations and whatever. The movie ends, and the lights come up, and you’re kind of sitting in silence because—I don’t know if you know this, but it’s a tragedy.” He continues, “Then all of a sudden, you hear from the back of the theater, ‘So what’d you guys think?’ And you’re like, God, what is wrong with you people? Can’t you guys give us a minute to process this?”
In the months since that fateful day, Faist has done some reflecting on his breakout film (and seen it with a larger audience), sharing how he felt onscreen and off during Little Gold Men. Elsewhere on this week’s episode, Katey joins cohosts David Canfield, Rebecca Ford, and Richard Lawson to make sense of the Golden Globe and Critics Choice Award nominations. The group also reflects upon the 2021 Black List with the list’s founder, Franklin Leonard, who is also a Vanity Fair contributor.
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Read a partial transcript of the Mike Faist interview below.
Vanity Fair: You said something when talking to the Times, that what you had seen making West Side, you can’t unsee. I couldn’t totally piece out what that meant. Obviously, it’s a huge movie to make. But what was it particularly about making it that you can’t unsee?
Mike Faist: Look, for Steven and [screenwriter] Tony [Kushner] and all of us making this movie, it really was beyond a privilege. I like the word that Tony uses. We were stewards of this material. I think, for us, we really felt like we were a part of something that was much bigger than ourselves. When you’re a part of something like that, it’s just an amazing feeling. You can’t help but remember why you got into all of this in the beginning, why you wanted to be an actor or do any of this. It was a real reminder, personally, of what I want to at least feel and do with a “career,” quote, unquote. You know what I mean? Whatever that is. We play pretend for a living. That’s ridiculous in itself. I really feel like we’re the lucky ones. Not everybody gets the ability to pursue work that’s joyful all the time. We don’t always either. But we still are doing something that we love.
Because of that, there’s a real responsibility, you gotta do it right. It has to come from the place of love for what you do. If it comes from some other place—I always say you should do stuff from love, not for love. There’s a big difference. There’s a huge difference. That’s what I meant, I think, when I was saying that. I was shaken where I stood working with Steven and Tony, the whole cast, the Jets, everyone working on this, and having that very visceral reaction, and realizing you’ve got to set a new precedent for yourself, Mike.