Claire Danes Says Leonardo DiCaprio Told Her Not to Play With Prop Guns on ‘Romeo + Juliet’ Set: ‘Claire, We Don’t Do That’

By Daniel D'Addario

Daniel D'Addario

Chief TV Critic

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Claire Danes got some very valuable advice from a future Oscar winner.

In her Variety Actors on Actors conversation with “Half Man” star Richard Gadd, the “The Beast in Me” performer reminisced about shooting 1996’s “Romeo + Juliet” with Leonardo DiCaprio. 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.) “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,’” Danes recalls. “He was right, but I was just being a doofus and a girl.”

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