When Baz Luhrmann brought his vision of William Shakespeare’s famous tragedy Romeo And Juliet to life he paved the way for a new generation of Hollywood stars who were bound for greatness.
The recreation of the classic tale broke boundaries by bucking the trend of bringing the regional text into the modern age, and sticking with the olde English script.
Baz drafted in a carefully selected batch of up and coming Hollywood stars to bring his creation to audiences around the globe – and they were riveted.
The movie made an unprecedented impact and shot its stars way up the charts of the dizzy heights of fame.
Leonardo DiCaprio
Leo’s was already a name that was on the lips of everyone that mattered in Hollywood when he stepped into the role of Romeo Montague.
He had already impressed the industry with his work in What’s Eating Gilbert Grape and The Basketball Diaries – and his boyish good looks didn’t do him any harm either.
After Romeo And Juliet catapulted him even further into the limelight, he was cast as Jack Dawson in Titanic alongside Kate Winslet’s Rose DeWitt Bukater and keeping the theme of an epic romance marred by tragedy did the trick.
Leo has since become one of the biggest names in Hollywood, spanning decades. His work led to him being a fan favourite in every project he has undertaken.
However, he struggled to gain the professional recognition fans felt he deserved for many years and the missing Oscar from his trophy cabinet became a hot topic surrounding the academy awards.
Leo was nominated has been nominated as Best Supporting Actor once, and Best Actor an impressive five times – but he’s only walked away with the prize once.
Many movie buffs were shocked when he failed to win in 2014 for his iconic role as Jordan Belfort in Wolf Of Wall Street, feeling someone at the Academy clearly had it in for him.
But he finally got his big moment two years later in 2016 – 22 years after his first-ever Oscar’s nomination – when he picked up the prize after his outstanding performance as Hugh Glass in wilderness movie The Revenant.
Leo is also renowned for his love of the environment and philanthropy – as well as for dating a string of stunning leggy models including Gisele Bundchen, Bar Refaeli and current love Camila Morrone who he has been dating since 2017.
Oh and let’s not forget all the meme’s he’s been made into from his 31 movie-strong career, but that would be a whole other feature…
Claire Danes
If you’re talking about acting royalty then it doesn’t get much better than Claire Danes.
She joined the cast of Romeo And Juliet having already become a household name globally thanks to her role in angsty teen drama My So Called Life and period movie Little Women.
Claire’s career has been nothing short of incredible and her chemistry with Leo only served to further fuel her reputation as an up and coming acting powerhouse in the ’90s and ’00s.
She spent an impressive nine years playing CIA agent Carrie Mathison on her primetime drama show Homeland.
Claire has racked up over 18 awards nominations and 13 wins including three Emmys, four Golden Globes and two SAG awards.
Both Homeland and My So Called Life earned her coveted Best Actress gongs at the Golden Globes.
Despite being a national sweetheart in the USA though Claire has made one or two controversial mistakes.
Both she and her movies are still banned from the Philippines after she said Manila “smelled of cockroaches, with rats all over, and that there is no sewage system, and the people do not have anything – no arms, no legs, no eyes”.
Despite apologising her ban has never been lifted.
Claire – who is happily married to fellow actor Hugh Dancy – also caused a stir when she entered in to a relationship with The Morning Show star Billy Crudup.
The relationship got tongues wagging because Billy broke up with his partner – who was seven months pregnant at the time – in order to be with Claire.
The pair ended up dating for three years, and Claire later said about the whirlwind romance: “That was a scary thing. It was really hard. I didn’t know how to not do that.
“I was just in love with him, and needed to explore that, and I was 24 … I didn’t quite know what those consequences would be. But it’s OK. I went through it.”
Claire met Hugh in 2006 and they’re happily married with two kids.
Paul Rudd
Paul had already won over his fair share of fans after his role as Cher’s geeky older step brother/love of her life in teen flick clueless in 1995, so he easily made the transition to playing Count Paris – a love interest for Juliet.
If you know anything about retro film and TV then you’ll already be well aware that arguably one of Paul’s most important roles to date was his run as Phoebe Buffay’s prince charming and honorary friend Mike Hannigan in Friends.
He has been kicking back the competition in Hollywood for an impressive 26 years now and is even a superhero in the Marvel universe taking on the role of Ant Man.
He’s proven himself to be hilarious too in movies including Anchorman, Role Models and This Is 40.
And if he wasn’t cool enough already he’s even in the new Ghostbusters movie.
John Leguizamo
John has one of those faces that you instantly recognise thanks to his lengthy career in the movie business.
Often cast in the role of an antagonist he has had an undeniably successful career and managed to keep a pretty low-key personal life in the process – something which isn’t easy to do.
However those of you who aren’t immature enough to be huge fans of kids films may not know one of his most prominent roles is as the voice of Sid The Sloth in the Ice Age movie series.
He has also appeared in Moulin Rouge, The Lincoln Lawyer and John Wick to name but a few of his bulging list of roles.
Dash Mihok
Playing Benvolio Montague, Dash was vital member of the supporting cast when the movie came out. His acting career was made all the more interesting by the fact he actually suffers from Tourette’s Syndrome.
Dash says having the condition is what helped him become such a successful actor because the focus required to deliver a strong performance has helped him to learn to mask the symptoms of his ailment.
He has remained firm friends with Leo over the years, and the pair even holidayed to Cuba together in 1997 which resulted in Alanis Morissette writing three songs about him.
He is currently best known for his role as Brendan “Bunchy” Donovan in US crime drama series Ray Donovan.
Harold Perrineau
Harold fitted the role of party animal Mercutio perfectly thanks to his outgoing personality and fun-loving demeanour.
The actor managed to perfectly adapt his skills to continue his career in Hollywood once the hype from Romeo and Juliet had died down.
He went on to star in huge hit TV series Lost, as well as appearing in popular biker show Sons Of Anarchy and in a string of Box Office smash movies including 28 Days Later and Zero Dark Thirty.
He also embarked on a music career and has appeared in videos alongside MKTO and J.Cole.
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Source: Celebrities - dailystar.co.uk
