Leonardo DiCaprio told Claire Danes not to play with prop guns on ‘Romeo + Juliet’ set

Los Angeles, June 13 (IANS) Hollywood actress Claire Danes has revealed the valuable advice from the Oscar-winning actor Leonardo DiCaprio. The actress recently reminisced about shooting ‘Romeo + Juliet’.

While the shoot, like the film, was emotionally intense, Danes, at 17, tried to lighten the mood by playing with an onset firearm just before shooting her death scene. Juliet, finding Romeo dead by self-inflicted poison, sobs and shoots herself in the head, reports ‘Variety’.

The actress recently spoke with Richard Gadd for Actors on Actors conversation. She said, “I remember just blithely playing with the prop gun and putting it to my head, and Leo getting very serious and saying, ‘Claire, we don’t do that. Don’t eff around’. He was right, but I was just being a doofus and a girl”.

As per ‘Variety’, safety with prop firearms has received new attention in the years since the tragic onset shooting of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins in 2021 on the set of the film ‘Rust’.

And Leo, who’s worked with guns in films like ‘The Revenant’ and ‘The Departed’, was already aware of taking special caution even in his Romeo days. Leo, 21 during the shoot, was already a seasoned pro, 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 earned an Emmy nomination.

The emotional intensity of the shoot was perhaps new for her, though, and it brought something out of Danes, Gadd told her that he’d written a school essay on her “guttural sob” she lets out upon finding Romeo’s body.

“I remember that moment very distinctly. I was surprised by it. And the environment was so epic that Baz (Luhrmann) had created. I was moved by the mise en scène, in a way, and the tragedy, but the world he created helped elicit that feeling”, she added.

–IANS

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