Rita Moreno Recalls Feeling 'Absolutely Delirious' Getting West Side Story Role: 'I Wanted It So Badly'

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At 91, Hollywood legend Rita Moreno is working as much as she ever has, with prominent roles in films like the recent 80 For Brady and the upcoming Fast X. But there's one part of her career she's relieved she hasn't had to devote time and energy to anymore: auditioning.

Speaking to PEOPLE on the red carpet at the 38th annual Artios Awards, where the Casting Society bestowed her with its Lynn Stalmaster Award for Career Achievement, Moreno admitted she couldn't remember the last time she had to audition — and is glad those days are behind her.

"I would be horrible at it. I get too nervous!" the EGOT winner says. "I am the classic 'God, don't audition her — she will be horrible.' "

It's been that way since the beginning of her seven-decade career, she explains, admitting she was even stunned to be cast as Anita in 1961's West Side Story, the classic film musical that would earn her an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress.

"The shock was really West Side Story; I had no idea," says Moreno, who was 28 when she went after the role. "They screen-tested tons of young women. Anybody with dark hair and dark eyes was auditioned. I really thought I didn't have a chance. So I was absolutely delirious when I got the part, because I wanted it so badly. And look what happened!"

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But the Puerto Rican–born performer, who moved to New York City with her family at age 5, says she has an idea what ultimately earned her the role, despite audition jitters.

"I think I know what it was," she says. "Because when I initially auditioned, I auditioned the scene in the candy store, and that one really got to where I live, because that's where the boys abuse her."

The scene, in which Moreno's Anita is harassed and nearly assaulted by the street gang the Jets, remains one of the film's most harrowing and one of Moreno's finest moments on screen.

"It was one of those scenes that takes you back to the bad old days in your own life," she explains. "I know that was an Oscar scene. I didn't know it then, but now I always call it 'the Oscar scene,' because I know that's what I think got me the Oscar, that scene."

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Accepting her career achievement award from the organization of casting directors, Moreno took the stage at the Beverly Hilton Hotel and made note of just how busy she's been as a nonagenarian, particularly in the wake of her critically acclaimed turns in Netflix's remake of One Day and a Time and director Steven Spielberg's 2021 remake of West Side Story.

"For the last several years I have been having the time of my life," she told the crowd. "Some have called it a renaissance. I wake up exhausted every morning, not from a lack of a good night's sleep, but in anticipation of all of the things I'll be up to in the new day. I would like to call it 'joyous exhaustion,' to be 91 and so alive."

"I have a premonition that the reason all of these amazing things are happening to me has something to do with a role that I finally surrendered to play after turning it down for many years," she added. "The older I become, the more fully I try to inhabit the part. What's that role? Being myself. I highly recommend it."