Did you know that Natalie Portman almost starred opposite Leonardo DiCaprio in the cult film “Romeo + Juliet”? The actress was ultimately not selected due to her too young age.
A very modern transposition of William Shakespeare’s classic, Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo + Juliet, set in our time in the heart of Los Angeles, stars Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes. But did you know that it was Natalie Portman who was first hired for the lead female role?
Many young Hollywood actresses were in the running for the coveted role of Juliet, including Sarah Michelle Gellar, Jennifer Love Hewitt, Aaliyah, Kate Winslet and Christina Ricci. But it is Natalie Portman who makes the strongest impression. Then aged 13, the one who had just revealed herself to the general public thanks to Léon, a film with which she still has a “complicated” relationship, even went to Sydney to do tests with DiCaprio.
But very quickly, Natalie Portman’s age posed a problem. “It was a complicated situation because at the time I was 13 and Leonardo was 21, which was not appropriate in the eyes of the studio or Baz Luhrmann. So we mutually decided that I wouldn’t act in the film. (…) It wasn’t the right timing.” declared the actress in an interview relayed by BuzzFeed. And Portman completes at the microphone of the New York Times : “Fox Studios felt like Leonardo DiCaprio was attacking me every time he kissed me.”
In the end, it is Claire Danes, whose name was whispered to Baz Luhrmann by Jane Campion, who will get the role of Juliette. The young actress, who had just played in the series Angela, 15, was 17 years old when she met the eccentric Australian filmmaker for the first time.
The female gaze: a “reductive vision” for Natalie Portman who gives her opinion on female gaze in cinema
Released in theaters in 1997, Romeo + Juliet grossed more than $147 million worldwide. In France, Baz Luhrmann’s feature film attracted more than 1.2 million spectators.
Natalie Portman will be showing on February 24 in May December, directed by Todd Haynes. In this film, she plays a famous actress who, to prepare for her new role, comes to meet the woman she will play on screen, a woman (played by Julianne Moore) whose love life has ignited the tabloid and passionate press. the country 20 years earlier.
False Connection: the best blunders of the 90s, volume 1 (with some “Romeo + Juliet” in it!)