Rita Moreno Has No Plans to Retire, Wants to Work With Emma Stone and Speaks Out Against ‘Mentally Ill’ Donald Trump
Rita Moreno may be turning 93 in December, but the legendary EGOT winner is still thinking about returning to the stage.
“I don’t miss it all the time, but sometimes I do,” Moreno says over Zoom from her northern California home. “I play Alexa all the time because I love music, and I love jazz. Once in a while I start singing along with them and performing the song, and I’ll say to myself, ‘I think you miss this.’ There’s always a chance that I may do it again. I mean, singing, you can do. You can’t do dancing. My knees would just scream and yell for help.”
More from Variety
She continues, “I’ll be cleaning a piece of furniture, and I’ll put the rag down and just stand there and perform. I love performing. I’m such a ham bone.”
Moreno is just days away from being honored with the Icon Award at the fourth annual Academy Museum Gala in Los Angeles. Also being feted during the starry event on Oct. 19 will be Quentin Tarantino with the Luminary Award and Paul Mescal with the Vantage Award. (Moreno will also appear at a screening of the original “West Side Story” at the museum on Oct. 16, followed by an on-stage conversation.)
What comes to mind when you hear the word “icon”?
I think of people like Quentin Tarantino. He is a genius. There are certain people whose work I just adore. Along with Quentin, I also love Steven Spielberg’s work. When you think of the stuff he has put out, each movie is different. “E.T.” is one of my favorite movies ever. He’s a genius, too.
And Paul Mescal is only 28 years old.
The nerve of him – that son of a bitch!
What’s your advice for a 28-year-old in the business?
Are you kidding? I’m shutting my mouth for once. I just want to say things like [Moreno deepens her voice], “Hey, bro.”
What has been your secret sauce for having this career and being almost 93 years old?
Isn’t that astonishing? I ask myself that all the time. I don’t come up with an answer. I just usually say, “You’re a lucky bitch.”
That can be the title of your next documentary, “Rita Moreno: You’re a Lucky Bitch.”
That would be fun, wouldn’t it?
But it’s certainly not just luck.
Of course, it’s more than that. You can’t end up with these kinds of — let’s call them — acknowledgments, and not feel something very personal and deep and very serious. I am moved beyond. If I let myself get as serious as I feel and emotional as I feel in my acceptance speech, I’d be an absolute disgrace because I would be in tears all the time for that whole five or 10 minutes. I can’t let that happen. I need to show the better part of Rita and the better part of me really has to do with humor. I love being funny. I love making people laugh. To me, that’s a gift, to actually amuse people, to have them find you charming. I’m glad that I have that quality in me. I can be immodest enough to say that.
What do you remember most about walking onto the set for the first day of filming of [the original] “West Side Story?”
I was beyond thrilled. I don’t even know that I can explain something, but I have a better story to tell you. I almost didn’t do Anita in “West Side Story.” So, I did screen tests. Everybody with brown hair and brown eyes, they did a screen test, and I think I did a couple of them. I finally got the part, and I was just ecstatic. I thought, “This can really make me noticed. This is a great part, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.” I was thrilled to pieces. I run out once I get the part, go to the music store and buy the score of “West Side Story” so I can learn all that I have to learn well in advance so I’ll know it backwards in my sleep. And I go to “America” and to my absolute shock, the verse goes like this, “Puerto Rico, you ugly island, island of tropic diseases,” and I looked at that copy and I stared at it for the longest time, and I thought, “Oh my God, I can’t do that. I can’t do those words. I cannot do that. I can’t do that to my people.” And the next really horrible thing was I was going to have to call my agent who killed himself for this, made personal sacrifices for this, and tell him, and how was he going to take it? I knew what would happen. He would start screaming at me and say, “Are you crazy? This is the part of the century.” As that day approached, I got a delivery of the script of “West Side Story” with all the renews and rewrites and stuff like that. I immediately went to the verse of “America,” and I looked at it and it said, “Puerto Rico, my heart’s devotion, let it sink back in the ocean,” rewrite, not the “island of tropic diseases.”
Is there a role you that got away that you really wanted?
Oh, there’s a number of roles, but they all went to Meryl Streep. What can I say? Whenever someone says, “Is there a role you’d like?” I say, “Yeah, anything that Meryl Streep did.”
When are you and Meryl Streep going to do something together?
Oh, God only knows.
Who would you still love to work with?
Any one of those wonderful ladies. Julianne Moore, she’s a superb actress. Emma Stone, what a beautiful actress. She surprises us. When an actor can do that to you, when an actor can surprise you, that is the best.
Have you ever thought about retiring?
What does that mean? I have no idea what that mean. Retiring? Not performing? As long as I can make people laugh or make them cry as a performer, hell no, I’m not leaving. But not only that, I love what I do. And I love actors. I love artists. When I meet someone I admire, I get that stupid look on my face of worship. It’s genuine. I’ll give you an example. My daughter [Fernanda Luisa Gordon] and I went to the Vanity Fair Oscar party last year. We were walking around and I see Lenny Kravitz, and I said to Fernanda, “Let’s go over and say hello.” What I usually do then is say, “Hello. I admire your work. I’m Rita Moreno. How do you do?” I don’t ever assume that people know who I am. He goes to his knees. He goes to his fucking knees. And he not only goes there, but he stays there and embraces my knees. And he says, “You have no idea.” And he went on and on about how much he admired me, my work, and how much I mean to his people. And he is holding my hand and kissing it.
The last time we talked was when the Supreme Court reversed Roe v. Wade. How are you feeling about the election right now?
Depressed, and then sometimes feeling wonderful because this miracle has transpired, but I just don’t know that [Kamala Harris has] had enough time. Look what she’s done in no time. It’s astonishing. But through the rest of the way, who knows? When you hear about Latinos pulling their vote, I just can’t believe it. I can’t believe it. But there’s something about this man, this dreadful man that makes people feel that he’s manly, which is simply because he speaks his mind in the most obscene of ways. A lot of people think that’s manly. I want to shout to the world, “No, no, no, no. You’re misreading that so-called bravado. That’s stupidity. Remember stupidity, folks?” This is the personification of evil, truly. I do believe not just this man, but his minions as well, I think they’re mentally ill. I’m on tenterhooks.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Best of Variety
Sign up for Variety's Newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
Solve the daily Crossword
