Leonardo DiCaprio made me lay down “Romeo + Juliet” weapons
Claire Danes received some very valuable advice from a future Oscar winner.
In her Variety Actors on Actors conversation with “Half Man” star Richard Gadd, “The Beast in Me” artist reminisced about filming 1996’s “Romeo + Juliet” with Leonardo DiCaprio. While the shoot – like the film – was emotionally intense, Danes, at age 17, tried to lighten the mood by playing with a gun just before shooting her death scene. (Juliet, who finds Romeo dead of self-inflicted poison, cries and shoots herself in the head.) “I remember just happily playing with the prop gun and putting it to my head, and Leo got very serious and said, ‘Claire, we’re not doing that. Don’t go fooling around,'” Danes recalls. “He was right, but I was just a loser and a girl.”
Prop gun safety has gained new attention in the years since the tragic 2021 shooting of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins on the set of the film “Rust.” And DiCaprio – who has handled guns in films like “The Revenant” and “The Departed” – was aware even in his Romeo days that he had to be extra careful. DiCaprio, 21 at the time of filming, was already a seasoned professional, having received an Oscar nomination for “What’s Eating Gilbert Grape,” but Danes was no slouch, having led the ABC drama “My So-Called Life” and earning an Emmy nomination. The emotional intensity of the shoot may have been new to her, and it brought out something in Danes: Gadd told her he had written a school essay about her “guttural sob” she uttered when she found Romeo’s body. (Better yet, Gadd got a good grade.) “I remember that moment very clearly,” Danes says. “I was surprised by it. And the environment was so epic that Baz [Luhrmann] had created. I was moved in a way by the mise-en-scene and by the tragedy, but the world he created helped evoke that feeling.”
Danes, as is known, joined “Romeo + Juliet” as a replacement; 14-year-old Natalie Portman, who was initially cast in the role, was considered too young to read in front of the camera opposite her adult male costar. And while her career — with multiple Emmy wins for “Homeland” and now a critically acclaimed starring role in a Netflix hit — is one to envy, fans of her collaboration with DiCaprio may be wondering what could have happened. In one 2020 interviewDanes revealed that she was pursued to play Rose in ‘Titanic’ but told producers she couldn’t do it. “I was very clear about it, I was not conflicted,” she said at the time. “I wanted to have different creative experiences and that felt repetitive and would push me into something I knew I didn’t have the tools to handle.”
Read the full Variety Actors on Actors between Danes and Gadd here or watch it now on CNN.com/Watch or on the CNN app.
