Clare Danes Picked To Play Modern Juliet

Director Baz Luhrmann has finally found his Juliet: actress Clare Danes (“Little Women,” TV’s “My So-Called Life”). The director, who begins filming his modern version of Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet” in October with Leonardo DiCaprio starring as Romeo, said, “I’ve been auditioning all the finest young actors in America and I’ve seen 60 actresses for Juliet around the world.”

The only other person cast so far is Peter O’Toole as Friar Laurence.

Luhrmann described the project as “William Shakespeare’s ‘Romeo and Juliet’ set in the modern world, using the Elizabethan language spoken in a contemporary voice.”

He added that the film would be set in a world “where we take the social and economic realities of the Elizabethan world and we image that in modern images.”