Baz Lurhmann: The idea was to play the play in contemporary images. My thing about Shakespeare is this incredible pretense and this mentality about the rule book, about the way in which it is correct to do Shakespeare. Most of those ideas are 19th-century interpretations – very little to do with the Elizabethan stage. So I went to the studio and I told them the idea. [They said] “It’s really great, but just one thing; can you take the language out?”
ON CASTING ROMEO AND JULIET
BL: Leonardo DiCaprio was always going to be Romeo. I just thought, ‘He’s Romeo,’ and I rang up his agent. We met and I said, ‘Look, don’t say yes or no, but come down to Sydney, go diving on the Barrier Reef and we’ll work for a week. If you like it, we’ll talk more…’ So he came down for a week. He worked. I asked Don McAlpine, who I didn’t know and who was one of the highest paid DPs in the world, to get a video camera, and we shot three large sections of the film with actors and my little team, with everything we could get, and we made this little video. Once [the studio] saw just how clear a lot of the telling of the story could be, then there was a sense of ‘it might work’.
Leonardo DiCaprio: We interviewed a lot of girls for Juliet, because we wanted to get a powerful Juliet instead of one that’s sort of really dreamy. We wanted someone that could be intense with the emotion, and once I met Claire, I said, “Wow, this girl’s powerful. She knows what she’s doing!” and Baz agreed with me, and then we hired her.
Denne historien er fra October 2021-utgaven av Total Film.
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Denne historien er fra October 2021-utgaven av Total Film.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
Allerede abonnent? Logg på
RETURN TO OZ
WICKED Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande defy gravity as the Broadway smash reaches cinemas.
GRIN AND BEAR IT
SMILE 2 Trauma-horror sequel sees the curse latch onto a pop superstar...
BAD ROMANCE
TIMESTALKER Alice Lowe falls in love with the wrong man time and time again...
CLOWNING GORY
TERRIFIER 3 Creator Damien Leone says Art the Clown is coming home for Christmas...
SELF EXPRESSION
LAYLA A non-binary, British-Palestinian drag queen navigates their expression of identity.
GENA ROWLANDS
I like difficult roles,' said Gena Rowlands. No kidding. A stage, TV and film actor whose career spanned more than six decades, Rowlands will be most remembered for the series of coruscating dramas she made with her first husband, actor-turned-director John Cassavetes, between 1968 and 1984.
'NOW NOTHING IS ABOUT LOOKS OR ABOUT BEING A LEADING LADY.AND IT'S VERY LIBERATING' EMILY WATSON
Since breaking hearts in Breaking the Waves, Emily Watson has delivered countless screen masterclasses, from Gosford Park and Punch-Drunk Love to Apple Tree Yard. Now, the English star goes toe-to-toe with Cilllan Murohy in Irish drama Smeal/ Things like hese and fronts 1V prequel Dune: Prophecy. Is it her second coming? It's elementary, my dear Watson...
BLODD PRESSURE
BASED ON STEPHEN KING'S MOST INFLUENTIAL BOOK AND WRITTEN AND DIRECTED BY IT SCRIBE GARY DAUBERMAN, VAMPIRE MOVIE SALEM'S LOT FACED AN UNHOLY FIGHT TO GET TO OUR SCREENS. TOTAL FILM HUNTS DOWN DAUBERMAN AND STARS LEWIS PULLMAN AND MAKENZIE LEIGH TO LEARN ALL THAT WAS AT STAKE...
Lucky Man
He broke out in Beatles jukebox musical Yesterday and has a varied slate of juicy projects on the horizon, including a very different take on a superhero franchise. But, as the everhumble Himesh Patel tells Total Film, he puts a lot of it down to luck...
A BUE ABOVE
WORLD-BUILDER EXTRAORDINAIRE RIDLEY SCOTT IS ALSO THE MASTER OF THE DIRECTOR'S CUT, RESTORING HIS MISHANDLED GEMS INTO MASTERPIECES. WITH THE EXPANSIVE DIRECTOR'S CUT OF NAPOLEON NOW AVAILABLE TO STREAM, TOTAL FILM SPEAKS TO THE GREAT SCOTT ABOUT BLOWING UP BONAPARTE HIS RELATIONSHIP WITH EDITING AND WHY BIGGER IS (USUALLY) BETTER.