Our magic mirror tells us that the Broadway-to-big-screen blossoming of Snow White star, Andrew Burnap, could be one of the definitive breakouts of 2025.
Andrew Burnap received a walking pad for Christmas. The compact, quieter cousin of the treadmill keeps a low profile under many office workers’ desks, allowing them to get their steps in while tethered to their 9-5. On the January morning we connect, however, the 33-year-old actor has ventured out into the subzero streets of his adopted home in New York instead. “I find that my circadian rhythm really needs sun in the morning,” he says with a bounce in his conversation befitting someone whose internal clock is running exactly on schedule.
However, the walking pad’s utility might truly come into its own as Andrew’s profile balloons in the weeks that follow. It could sit in the corner of his dressing room at Broadway’s Ethel Barrymore Theatre, for example, where he’ll be starring in Othello alongside Denzel Washington and Jake Gyllenhaal from February. The show’s official opening night in March trails the release, by two days, of Disney’s live-action remake of Snow White, in which he stars as Jonathan, a re-imagined male lead role—neither the huntsman nor the prince—the exact details of which remain elusive at the time of our chat.
Between his studio-film debut and star-studded stage return, his static exercise device accompanies Andrew into a spring defined by the longest career strides to date for the Tony-winning theatre darling. “It does feel like I’m on the brink of something,” he says. “We never know how our life is going to change, but I definitely know an event or two is coming, and how that manifests in my personal and public life remains to be seen.”
A Google search would have you believe that Snow White is Andrew’s second Disney role, with his name wrongly attached by some sources to 2023’s live-action remake of The Little Mermaid. “I’ve actually got a few texts from friends being like, ‘Are you in that?’” he laughs. “And then I check my bank account and say, ‘No, I don’t think so.’” Until the Snow White script landed in his inbox, he was a mere lover of the legacy fairytale factory like the rest of us—particularly taken, as a child growing up in Rhode Island, by Aladdin. “He is such a humble hero, and I’ve always loved those characters who think low of themselves but are capable of so much.”
Perhaps Andrew identified himself in the self-effacing streak of the people’s prince. “When I got the audition [for Snow White], I said, ‘Yeah, never going to get this,’” he recalls. “But I rolled out of bed and put an [audition] tape together very quickly, and they just kept on saying yes.” One thing he was confident in from the start was the modernised contours given to the story’s central male figure. “Jonathan was very clear on the page, which was a real gift,” he explains. Rumour has it the film’s titular character, played by West Side Story’s Rachel Zegler, will have a welcomed autonomy augmentation compared to her 1937 cartoon counterpart, who lay waiting for a prince to liberate her—a more empowered figure in her love story rather than reliant on it, you could say. But according to Andrew, plenty of romance remains. “Those who are looking for a love story will certainly find it in our Snow White.”
Technological advancements in the almost nine decades since the original film’s release mean the story’s escapism is further enhanced by the enchantment of 2020s filmmaking apparatus. “It was just this constellation of stimuli,” Andrew says of days on set at London’s Pinewood Studios. “The very first day of shooting was in the Queen’s dining room, and the colours and the specificity of detail and the scale of it all were incredible. It’s so easy to believe in what you’re doing when you’re surrounded by a set of that nature.”
And there were further wonders to be found beyond the studio walls as Andrew indulged in the British capital’s cultural attractions, spanning West End theatre, walks in Hyde Park, and the discovery that its vintage shopping offering was his favourite in the world. “I have a real problem with buying clothing, so that did not help that problem,” he smiles. However, he still treasures a tweed jacket he purchased during his stay. “If I may say so, it looks a million bucks, and it still kind of smells like the shop that I got it in, so it just fills me back with those memories.”
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Photography by Cody Lidtke
Styling by Jordan Dorso
Words by Andrew Wright
Grooming by Jason Murillo at De Facto:
Fashion Assistant Kyle Sosa