When Justin Peck’s dad was 10 years old, his own father — Peck’s grandfather — took him to see a new Broadway show that was proving something of a sensation. West Side Story, which had opened at the Winter Garden Theatre in September 1957 and would run for more than 700 performances, came with a pedigree that was second to none: it was the brainchild of choreographer Jerome Robbins, with music by Leonard Bernstein and lyrics from Stephen Sondheim, not to mention, of course, that it was an updated retelling of a certain love story by a certain William Shakespeare.

“My dad was really blown away by it when he first saw it,” says the 34-year-old Peck from his office in Manhattan’s Lincoln Center, where he, like Robbins before him, is New York City Ballet’s artistic advisor and resident choreographer, and one of the most exciting forces in dance today. “My grandfather wasn’t much of a musical-theatre fan; he was more interested in plays. But West Side Story held this very special place. It was an outlier for him. He really admired it, and thought it was a very daring take on Romeo and Juliet, which it is.”

pictured justin peck
Ryan Pfluger

West Side Story was formative for Peck too. As a child in San Diego, California, watching the 1961 film version, with Natalie Wood and Richard Beymer as star-crossed lovers Maria and Tony, gave him, he says, “one of the first glimpses into seeing male dancers interpret a story through movement and acting”. Later, when he was studying at the School of American Ballet in his teens, he was able to watch NYCB’s production of Robbins’ iconic 40-minute West Side Story Suite; later still, after he’d joined the company himself, he would perform the suite in one of his first leading roles. “So,” says Peck, who has a gentle, self-effacing manner that belies his formidable achievements, “I got to know it kind of inside and out.”

All of which meant that when a dream proposition came his way — the chance to choreograph a new film version of West Side Story — the decision was, for Peck, somewhat loaded. “It was a very exhilarating moment, but also slightly terrifying, because I have so much reverence and admiration for this piece. I wasn’t fully confident I could take it on, because the original has been embedded in my history as a dance-maker, and also in my family’s history, so there was something a little bit scary about the ghosts in that.”

It can’t have hurt, however, that the request came from Steven Spielberg, who would be directing the new movie, nor that the screenplay was being written by Tony Kushner, the Pulitzer-winning playwright behind Angels in America. It was no surprise they wanted Peck, who has worked with musicians from Sufjan Stevens to Steve Reich, won numerous awards including a Tony, and been described in The New York Times as “the most eminent choreographer of ballet in the United States”, to join them. Still Peck, in the nicest possible way, had some questions.

“I wanted to make sure I wasn’t coming in to just restage it, or put up the original dances. That’s not what I’m interested in doing. I’m interested in a creative process. And I think we came to a really honest, common ground with how to pursue that.” After some “tough conversations”, Peck said yes.

preview for West Side Story (Trailer 1)

It’s difficult to overstate quite how important the original West Side Story was to musical theatre, and to people, like Peck’s grandfather, in whom the words “musical theatre” elicit less-than-effervescent feelings. It was tougher, for one thing: the story of the warring Montagues and Capulets reframed as the Polish-American Jets and the Puerto Rican Sharks fighting for territory in Hell’s Kitchen, Manhattan, set to iconic numbers such as “America”, “Cool”, and “Dance at the Gym”. Even more shocking than the knife fights was the sight of street gangs cracking out the high-leg kicks and pas de bourrées, their menace somehow undiminished.

Also ground-breaking was the fact that dance was not an add-on in West Side Story, it was its life-force. “I think it’s important to establish from the beginning for the audience that dance is a language that runs through this film,” says Peck. “What Robbins did so skilfully is he has the characters ease their way into a kind of dance carriage that is so subtle that we almost don’t fully realise it until it hits us across the face. It’s almost like an airplane taking off: it’s moving, it’s moving, it starts to take off, you almost don’t feel that you’ve left the ground. That’s definitely something that I’ve picked up on and attempted to incorporate through my work too.”

Peck says he and the film-makers saw “thousands and thousands” of people during the audition period; Ansel Elgort (Baby Driver) was eventually cast as Tony with the part of Maria going to newcomer Rachel Zegler. One of the aspects that he’s most proud of is that there is no body-doubling in the new film, even for an actor like Elgort, who hadn’t danced seriously since he was a kid. “That’s not something that is valued with every movie-musical: there is a lot of smoke and mirrors when it comes to dance. We didn’t have any of that. Everyone is genuinely giving an extraordinary dance performance.”

Each rehearsal day would begin with a dance class led by one of his associate choreographers, Craig Salstein or Patricia Delgado (Delgado is also Peck’s wife, with whom he has a seven-month-old daughter). “I would take the class along with everyone, and that really brought us together as a company. You could really sense there was a glue amongst the cast.” Sometimes Spielberg would come to rehearsals and mimic the movements of the camera. “Steven was very active in that space. He would be using his iPhone and walking through. It was a really exciting part of the process, to get to collaborate with him in that way.”

This is all a marked difference to Robbins’ approach. The earlier choreographer requested that the actors playing the Sharks and Jets stay in character at all times and did his best to stoke real beef between them. (The original Broadway Maria, Carol Lawrence, later described Robbins as “brutal”.) “It’s a different way of approaching the process, but I didn’t want to impose that kind of method on the cast,” says Peck, diplomatically. “I’ve always valued a sense of community bond. That’s the only way I know how to be in room with other people.”

As for his next step, Peck is keeping it loose. Recently he’s been pleased to get back to live performances — when we speak he’s just back from the Vail Dance Festival in Colorado — and he’s now working on a piece with Pulitzer-winning composer Caroline Shaw for NYCB’s winter season. His bigger ambition, though, is to combine choreographing with directing, like Robbins did with West Side Story, or Bob Fosse did with Cabaret. Despite Peck’s unassuming mien, you somehow suspect he will.

“I would say, honestly, that I don’t have the road between the dream and the goal, the reality, but…” he hesitates, then gathers himself. “But I’m working on it.”

West Side Story is in cinemas on 10 December

Lettermark
Miranda Collinge
Deputy Editor

Miranda Collinge is the Deputy Editor of Esquire, overseeing editorial commissioning for the brand. With a background in arts and entertainment journalism, she also writes widely herself, on topics ranging from Instagram fish to psychedelic supper clubs, and has written numerous cover profiles for the magazine including Cillian Murphy, Rami Malek and Tom Hardy.