Helen Mirren felt "so strongly" for her co-star Rachel Zegler as she watched the "unfair" Snow White debacle unfold from the sidelines.
The 24-year-old actress first faced backlash over her casting as the Disney princess due to her Latina heritage, and then came under fire for publicly criticising the 1937 animated classic.
After the film was released earlier this year, Zegler and her vocal support for Palestine were widely blamed for its disappointing performance at the box office.
During a conversation with her Shazam! Fury of the Gods co-star for Glamour's Women of the Year issue, Mirren praised Zegler for enduring the barrage of criticism.
"It's unbelievable your achievements since (Shazam!). Two movies - Hunger Games and Snow White - and all the s**t you had to deal with incidentally, which you dealt with with such courage, grace and fortitude. I thought you handled all that so beautifully," the British actress told her co-star. "But my God, you had to deal with such a lot. I was feeling for you so strongly from the sidelines."
"You were thrown into a very unfair, deep end," the Oscar winner continued. "You were made to confront and deal with things people twice your age would find difficult. You've had that experience and now that's in you. It's made you stronger, made you wiser."
Zegler candidly admitted that the experience gave her knowledge of "how quickly everyone can also really not like you", but she's now reached the point where criticism just "rolls right off (her) back".
While she hasn't "necessarily had the easiest time in the industry from the word go", the West Side Story actress is now riding high from her acclaimed performance in Evita on London's West End from June to September.
Mirren noted how much "love" there was for Zegler in the theatre when she went to see the show and the sense of "family" she felt when she went backstage afterwards.
Reflecting on doing Evita after the Snow White controversy, the star said, "The beautiful thing about Evita for me - beyond all of the wonderful people I met and all of the wonderful work we're doing - is that I never thought I would be a part of something so celebrated, because of the way that I've been conditioned to believe that I wouldn't be."
