Good news for True Grit’s Hailee Steinfeld: her Juliet now has a Romeo for her to whisper sweet nothings to from her balcony, as Variety brings word that Blighty’s own Douglas Booth has made it through the slings and arrows* of casting to win the role in the new take on Shakespeare’s classic romantic tragedy.
Booth, who has been seen in miniseries The Pillars of the Earth and movies like From Time to Time, has a role in Miley Cyrus rom com LOL in the can and will also play Pip in the new TV version of Great Expectations. He beat out 300 other young hopefuls for the part of the star-crossed lover.
Steinfeld will be his equally ill-fated lady, with Holly Hunter as her nurse and confidante, Ed Westwick as Tybalt and Kodi Smit-McPhee as Benvolio.
Director Carlo Carlei will shoot in Italy, working from a script adapted by Julian Fellowes. Don’t go expecting any big pop cultural/post-modern updating this time as this one looks to be following a much more traditional route. So: lots of speeches, plenty of angst and the inevitable tale of woe, then.
*Yes, we know it's from Hamlet.