Romeo + Juliet Turns 30! Leonardo DiCaprio & Claire Danes Reveal On-Set SECRETS | ET Vault Unlocked

Baz asked me to go do a little testing for it to see if the whole idea would work of having Romeo and Juliet in not a modern time frame, but sort of a futuristic fantasy world. Thus from my lips by thine my sin is purged. Then have my lips the sin that they have took. Sin from my lips? O trespass, sweetly urged, give me my sin again. I wouldn't have done it if it was in its original time frame. The reason I did it was because Baz was involved and it was sort of a created world, you know what I mean? So, that's the main reason I got involved with the project. You let Fernando do his hand thing, okay? You do your hand thing. Wait, hold on. Okay. Standing by. And... Turn off the switch! Rolling! Cut! Everyone stand by, just stand by. Cut. Winding holes. I can't hear you. Come on. I love the Shakespeare's, it's one I wanted to do for a very long time, and I figured if I didn't do it soon I'd probably be too old to do it. Being more specific, it's, you know, the notion behind the piece which is, you know, an impossible love in a world of learnt hate is a notion that I just have a very strong connection to, or, you know, in a world where you're told this relationship cannot happen because of, you know, politics or reasons or colour of skin or a learnt hatred that has to do with other people. I forgot my mail. The point of this film is to make Romeo and Juliet as clear a story as we can make it. And we want to make it relatable, and that's why it takes place in present time. It's not specifically 1996, and it's not in a specific city. We don't want it to be a fad, but it's a way for people to... Zero in on the characters in the story without having to think about corsets, you know, all the time. It's just, it's one step less removed from audiences of today. My lips, too blushing. Pilgrim, you do wrong your hand too much, which mannerly devotion shows you this. For saints have hands that pilgrims' hands do touch. And palm to palm is holy Palmer's kiss. Every word of text of dialogue in this is written by William Shakespeare. It is William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. It is the play. But what we've done is, I mean, what a lot of people don't realise is that when Shakespeare wrote, you know, his plays, he wrote for an Elizabethan sound. Now, the Elizabethans didn't speak with that kind of round vowel RP, which is that... You know, they spoke with a very kind of, I mean very much an American accent. I've always wanted to deal with the Shakespeare in a natural voice sound, so that was part of my reason for doing this. Two households, both alike in dignity, in fair Verona where we lay our scene. From ancient grudge break to new mutiny, where civil blood makes civil hands unclean. From forth the fatal loins of these two foes, a pair of star-crossed lovers take their life. We're trying to make Shakespeare really real, and we're trying to make it more of a conversation. I mean, from what I've seen as far as Shakespeare, it's always been sort of this, you know, out-there version, these English actors doing it and really putting every ounce of power into each syllable. And, you know, we still have the emotions involved, but it's a lot more conversational. By my head, here come the Capulets. By my heel, I care not. This is 100. And action! We've set it in a place we call Verona Beach for fun. But it's a concocted world. It's a world that could exist now, a city that could exist now that doesn't. And the thing about this city is we've used modern 20th century icons to create it. So different parts of the movie look completely different. The idea is to create the world from images and icons that we know and we recognize. I just think overall it's an extremely colorful film. I think you have a lot of extremely different ...characters, a whole bunch of new ideas, a whole created world to look at. Each character is very defined, very iconoclastic, you know. I mean, Romeo was the original rebel without a cause. He was the original James Dean or he's your Kurt Cobain. That is that he is a Byron-esque character in love with the notion of love and, you know, rejecting his parents and the world around him for that love. Why, Romeo, art thou mad? Not mad, but bound more than a madman is. Shut up in prison, kept without my food, whipped and tormented. Baz is, out of all the directors I've worked with, he has probably the most character in his, like, he's just such an individual, you know what I mean? He's really specific, which, with each of the movements he wants you to make, and he's really, really precise, and he knows exactly what they want, you know what I mean? Leonardo I became aware of right from the beginning, and I have to say, I mean, his strength and kind of journey and guts in in choosing and doing this and staying with it. I mean he came to Australia a couple of times, we did some workshops, he really went very thoroughly on this. The thing was with Leonardo, who's such a strong actor, was to find a Juliet, a modern 90s Juliet who was not, you know, a kind of a model, you know, you know sort of someone, but someone who was not just an image if you like, but someone who was really, I mean the character as written. She's a very active, I mean she takes a lot of the initiative, she says look, you know, hey if you want to have sex you better get married and I'll see you there tomorrow morning, you know. So that drive, you know, that control of the scenes, you really need, particularly because of her age, to find an extraordinary and strong, crafted actor. Not an easy task, but when I finally did come to know Claire, she is as a balance against Leonardo, a perfect balance for that reason. That chemistry is something quite wonderful. Thousand times good night. thousand times the warmth I liked. Claire Danes is the most fantastic young actress I've ever come across. She's a ball of emotion, a powerhouse, as I like to put it. He's brilliant. I mean, he's actually amazing at what he does. And he's one of the most interesting and smart people I think I've ever met. And I've had a really good time working with him and learning about him as a person. I have a lot of respect for him. He's a good guy. It's great to work with her. I mean, she's able to get into the stuff like that and really feed you what you need, you know what I mean? And she's a young girl and she's able to just control this and just... You know, throw it at you, and it's amazing. Dawn light is not daylight. I know it, I. It is some morning. The sun exhales lightly on my way to Mantua. Or stay yet. Thou needest not be gone. Well, let me be taken. Let me be put to death. I have more care to stay than will to go. Come death and welcome. Juliet wills it so. In your very first scene with Leonardo, you guys are in G-strings and nothing else? Yeah, no, that was the first day of shooting for both of us. Nice way to get to know each other. Yeah, it was quite the icebreaker. It was, I think we handled it pretty well, both of us, and I'm not so modest. How is my soul? Let's talk, it is not day. It is morning. Let's be gone away. Apparently it was supposed to be a closed set and everybody and their mother was, you know, watching me wrestle about in the sheets and bear. Tomorrow shall I send to thee. This one. If you're going to play this, you're going to have to drop it. That's it, and then we're going to go around the camera. Yeah, you and Leonardo spent a lot of time in that pool. Romeo, doff thy name. And for thy name, which is no part of thee, take all myself. I take thee by word. I spent days in that pool. It was insane. Like 12 days it took to shoot that scene. Action. Blessed moon, I vow that tips with silver all these fruit tree tops. I swear not by the moon. The inconstant moon that monthly changes in the circle of life. Blessed by God, whose life lies variable. We were in the pool so much it was unbelievable because we wanted to make the classic scene, you know. We wanted to get that right and it ended up being sort of this transverse thing where I climbed up to go see her and then all of a sudden she comes down under and starts talking about me and I'm watching her like I'm not supposed to be there as opposed to me looking up at the balcony for her. So we worked that out and then finally it clicked the way we did it and then we both fall into the pool and then sort of do the rest of the scene in there. I can't be mine before that's requested. We're trying to make something that hasn't been created before, and it's difficult because we're stepping into new territory and pushing our limits constantly. Baz wanted to bring a whole lot of new twists to the movie, which I really think worked. And at the same time, it didn't take away from what Romeo and Juliet really was about, which was these two lovers, you know? I will bite my thumb at them, which is a disgrace to them if they bear it. What are some of the new twists? The religious aspect of it is brought out a lot. Put up thy sword, or manage to depart these men with me. We had guns that were in the name of swords, like Sword S Series and Dagger Series. What Baz has done, the director, is that he's correlated the gunplay with the swordplay of the time and created the same codes as if this was a sword-carrying society. Now it's a gun-carrying society. I mean, there's drag queens all over the place. I mean, the Capulet Ball, I mean, if he was going to go, he wanted to go big. So, you know, Rakuichi had a white afro out to here, and he's dressed up in drag. We'll be right back. Did you get lessons from some of your female friends on how to dress the way you did in the movie? No, I mean, the costume designers are all just amazing and so, you know, I just kind of worked with them for a long time. When we rehearsed the dance, I got to do all this spinning and twirling and all that stuff with the shoes, so once I started doing that stuff, walking became like a breeze. Breathe. Oh, you had it! I don't know about that. I could never dance like that in a miniature. Yes, I'm telling you. I didn't think I could either. I thought you called RuPaul or something. I thought about him a lot. That's what I did. I watched a lot of videos. But he's a lot prettier than I am, so. You know. Was that a terrifying experience being in the beginning? Look, it was a lot of fun because I got to be so outrageous and I got to be, you know, do all this stuff and nobody's going to think anything but either he's really brave or he's really crazy and either way I like it. And in this state she gallops night by night through lovers' brains and then they dream All the stuff that was going on, it was so flamboyant with everything, but especially taking a context like Romeo and Juliet, it all works and it all fits together and it doesn't seem weird or, you know, camp at all. I will not budge for no man's pleasure, I. Peace be with you, Seth. Here comes my man. Being here in Mexico especially, we've been able to sort of... double the amount of money that we put into it because we're able to create this whole world and we're actually building a lot of the sets here. You know, and, um... I don't think we'd be able to do that in the States. The cost would be a lot more. Are thou hurt? Aye, aye, a scratch, a scratch. We want to have a magical feel to the film and Mexico does embody some of that, I think. And I believe that wherever you are adds to the final product of what you're creating. It all feeds into the material somehow, I think. They have made worms meat of me. A plague on both your houses! Your houses! I'd want to go see the movie if I wasn't in it. It's, you know, almost a perfectly structured story of two people falling in love and the tragedy that happens when they can't, you know, be with each other. Romeo.