Trivia / Romeo and Juliet (1968)

• Ability over Appearance: Juliet is described as a golden-haired Ingenue in the original poem by Arthur Brooke, and Olivia Hussey herself responded that she thought of Juliet as a blonde when asked. She was dark-haired, olive-skinned, and quite Argentinian but she won the part.
• Awesome, Dear Boy: Laurence Olivier provided the opening narration, dubbed Antonio Pierfederici's voice, and supplied a few background voices free of charge because he was impressed with the director's work for the National Theatre of Great Britain.
• Cast the Runner-Up: Michael York was given a choice of either Tybalt or Paris.
• Children Voicing Children:
  • This was the first major film adaptation to cast age-appropriate actors. Leonard Whiting was seventeen playing Romeo, and Olivia Hussey was sixteen playing Juliet. The latter would appear to have been given an Age Lift - yet the line about her not being fourteen yet was still included.
  • In the supporting cast Michael York (Tybalt) was twenty-five, Bruce Robinson (Benvolio) was twenty-one, and John McEnery (Mercutio) was twenty-three.
• Contractual Purity: Olivia Hussey says that the studio told her she had to appear to be more like Juliet when doing interviews with the press. So, she responded by rebelling in this famous interview - pulling her hair back into a ponytail, lighting up a cigarette and happily drinking a glass of mimosa for the whole thing. She was legally sixteen but gave her age as fifteen to the press. During filming, she and the other young actors were forbidden from partying in Rome, to preserve their innocent appearance to the public.
• Dark Horse Casting: None of the cast was stars, and most were inexperienced with film. Out of the young actors, only Michael York had been in anything notable (a version of The Taming of the Shrew released the previous year). This was the film debut for Leonard Whiting (Romeo), Pat Heywood (the Nurse), John McEnery (Mercutio), and Bruce Robinson (Benvolio).
• Deleted Scene:
  • Leonard Whiting recalls Franco Zeffirelli coming up to him and saying he had good news and shocking news. The good news was that the duel between Romeo and Paris in the crypt was "the best acting I'd done in the whole film", and the unwelcome news was that the scene was going to be cut. Word of God is that it affected the flow of Romeo discovering Juliet's body.
  • A scene where Romeo reads the guest list for the Capulets' party and discovers that Rosaline will be there was also cut.
  • Another cut scene would have been Tybalt's introduction, showing him in bed with a pretty girl, then leaping up and getting dressed to join the street fight.
• Doing It for the Art: Laurence Olivier agreed to play the uncredited role of the narrator because he was so impressed with Zeffirelli's work for the National Theatre of Great Britain, of which Olivier was the director at the time. Not only was Olivier the narrator, but as Franco Zeffirelli has also confirmed, he dubbed Antonio Pierfederici's voice (due to the actor's heavy Italian accent) as well as lending his voice to other anonymous characters. He did it all for the love of William Shakespeare and didn't accept any payment.
• Dyeing for Your Art:
  • Michael York, a natural blond-haired person, darkened his hair to play Tybalt.
  • Olivia Hussey was first put on diet pills at Paramount's orders. When she became violently ill as a result, her mother called the studio and told them that if they wanted her to stay on the pills then they could find themselves another Juliet. She did however have to go on a diet of salads and stay away from cakes and pasta to prepare for the nude scene.
• Enforced Method Acting: Both the leads were sent for extensive vocal training - Leonard Whiting had a cockney twang, while Olivia Hussey still had some Argentinian pronunciations in there - to properly get them into the mindset of the Shakespearean language.
• Fake Brit: Pat Heywood was Scottish putting on an English Cockney accent to play the Nurse.
• Follow the Leader: Macbeth (1971) was a clear attempt at cashing in on this one's success; particularly upping the violence from the source material, featuring Younger and Hipper leads (Lady Macbeth is commonly played as late 30s at the youngest) and having some nudity.
• Hollywood Hype Machine: The buzz around the film caused the Hype Machine to get around the young actors, particularly Olivia Hussey. She recalls being approached about starring in Anne of the Thousand Days and True Grit but accidentally alienated producers due to her youthful nerves. She also joked that she was never that good at looking out for her career's best interests. That being said, she still got several well-received roles in Jesus of Nazareth, Ivanhoe (the 1982 version), Death on the Nile and Mother Theresa of Calcutta or else Cult Classics (Black Christmas (1974)) or Acclaimed Flops (The Last Days of Pompei).
• Hostility on the Set:
  • Bruce Robinson (Benvolio) eventually revealed that Franco Zeffirelli made unwanted advances on him the first night of filming. He later based the lecherous Uncle Monty character in Withnail and I on the director.
  • Olivia Hussey plays with this, as she detailed many incidents where she clashed with Franco Zeffirelli - especially during the post-production ADR sessions. But she considered him a good friend and worked with him again afterward.
• I Am Not Spock: Both the leads are associated with Romeo and Juliet to this day. Leonard Whiting rarely did screen work, preferring the stage, so his other film roles were in indies (he also had a music and writing career). Olivia Hussey had more notable parts (see above) but titled her autobiography 'The Girl on the Balcony' - and included an introduction saying that whoever was reading it only was doing so because they'd seen Romeo & Juliet.
• Keep Circulating the Tapes: In the United States, the film has been out of print for years since its DVD release. It was released on Blu-ray but only in select territories outside the U.S. and it was only in 2023 when The Criterion Collection finally released it on Blu-ray for the U.S. market.
• Looping Lines: The balcony scene was done entirely through ADR, due to the lights making noises on set. Most of the rest of the film was done this way too.
• Non-Singing Voice: Bruno Filippini plays the Capulet singer Leonardo who performs "What Is a Youth?" at the masquerade. However, Glen Weston does the singing.
• One-Take Wonder: For the scene in which Juliet runs to see Friar Laurence and bumps into Paris, Olivia Hussey ran all around the set to get herself in the right mood and told the director he didn't need to tell her how to play the scene, and after "cut!" was jokingly told that she should be nicknamed 'One Take Hussey'.
• Production Posse:
  • Michael York had starred in Franco Zeffirelli's version of The Taming of the Shrew the previous year.
  • Franco Zeffirelli would also direct Olivia Hussey in Jesus of Nazareth (and Michael York starred in that too, as John the Baptist).
• The Red Stapler: Juliet's long hair inspired a vast number of girls to grow their hair out long too.
• Romance on the Set: Olivia Hussey and Leonard Whiting dated briefly, but decided they were Better as Friends and remained lifelong friends.
• Sleeper Hit: The film only had a budget of about $800,000 and grossed $38 million! It featured no major stars and unknown teenagers and twentysomethings in most of the roles - not to mention the grim and gritty New Hollywood era was ushering itself in (although the film did tie into that with its violent street brawls and nudity) - so the fact that an adaptation of classical Shakespeare did so well was quite astonishing. Even more amazing, teenage girls—not your typical Shakespeare demographic—made up a huge percentage of the film's audience.
• Star-Making Role:
  • Michael York was immediately put on the map with this, leading to his high-profile roles in Cabaret and Logan's Run.
  • Olivia Hussey plays with this, as she took a couple of years away from acting after the instant success, but still got lots of notable roles afterward.
  • Subverted with Leonard Whiting, who ended his film career in The '70s, to focus on stage work.
• Throw It In!: The song used at the masquerade (for the Moresca dance) was something the composer Nino Rota had written himself years ago and forgotten about - causing a few headaches for people who had to look up who owned copyright to it before he realised.
• Uncredited Role:
  • Laurence Olivier as the narrator.
  • Bruno Filippini as Leonardo the singer at the masquerade.
• Underage Casting: The Nurse is usually imagined as a middle-aged or older woman. Pat Heywood was only thirty-six when she played her but was Younger Than They Look. The Nurse is in her thirties in the original text – she had a daughter named Susan who died, but who would have been the same age as Juliet, almost fourteen – making Pat Heywood closer to her age than most of the others who have played her in film.
• What Could Have Been:
  • This was planned as a Made-for-TV Movie. But when Paramount became involved, the budget increased, and it became a theatrical film. Tellingly, this is one of few pre-Star Wars theatrical features to not have opening credits.
  • Anjelica Huston really wanted to play Juliet, but her father turned the part down for her, saying she was already committed to one of his films. She was annoyed about that.
  • None other than Paul McCartney was up to play Romeo. Sources differ on why it didn't happen. Some say that Paul lobbied hard to play Romeo, but since he was twenty-five and Franco Zefferelli was determined to cast teenagers, he was turned down. McCartney himself has said that Zeffirelli wanted him for the part, but that Paul declined, reluctant to take on Shakespeare when he'd never acted except for As Himself in Beatles films.
  • Leonard Whiting was originally supposed to sing the "What is a Youth?" song at the masquerade, but Bruno Filippini sings it in the scene with his voice dubbed by Glen Weston (as a gag, this uncredited character is called Leonardo). Leonard later recorded a version of it.
  • The first meeting between the two lovers was originally filmed as happening in the garden. According to Olivia Hussey, they realised it didn't work and had it happening inside at the masquerade instead.
  • Leonard Whiting also claims that a scene between Romeo and Benvolio (either the first one between them at the beginning or Romeo's goodbye after being banished) was filmed four times in separate locations.
  • Now-famous entertainers applied for the titular roles, including Jenny Agutter, Candice Bergen, Phil Collins, Sally Field, Jennifer O'Neill, Lulu, Twiggy, Susan George, Kurt Russell, Jeff Bridges, and Richard Dreyfuss.

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