Few stories have been adapted more than Romeo and Juliet, but writer/director Timothy Scott Bogart’s Juliet & Romeo completely flips the script on Shakespeare’s beloved play—rebuilding it as an original musical. Shot on location in real Italian castles and preserved medieval towns, the film trades in classical verse for original pop songs crafted by Bogart’s brother and longtime collaborator, the Grammy-winning songwriter Evan Kidd Bogart—known for co-writing hits like Beyoncé’s “Halo” and Rihanna’s “SOS”, along with songs for icons like Madonna, Jennifer Lopez, Britney Spears, and countless others.
Four centuries after Shakespeare penned the tale, this iteration of the Bard’s most adapted tragedy reframes the star-crossed lovers not as doomed teens, but as heroes within a larger historical shift. Rooted in the political turbulence of early 14th-century Europe, Juliet & Romeo features newcomers Clara Rugaard and Jamie Ward as the titular couple alongside screen veterans like Jason Isaacs, Rebel Wilson, Rupert Everett, and Sir Derek Jacobi.
As Juliet & Romeo arrives in theaters on May 9th from Briarcliff Entertainment, writer/director Timothy Scott Bogart sat down with Boxoffice Pro to discuss the decade-long odyssey behind rebuilding the Bard and launching what he envisions as a larger cinematic universe.
Your family is steeped in music history. How did music come to the forefront of this project, and what was that process like collaborating with your brother, E. Kidd Bogart, on the original music?
Growing up, music was simply everywhere and part of everything. That connection with music informed everything. I’ve never really looked at music as something separate from all the other aspects of storytelling. [For me,] they are inextricably intertwined. My brother, Evan Bogart, who co-wrote all of the music in the film, along with his partner Justin Gray, had been discussing the film with me for literally 10 years.
I remember being at lunch with him and asking why he thought Shakespeare had used iambic pentameter in his work, and Evan effortlessly said, “Because that was the poetry of his time.” I then asked what the poetry of our time was, and the answer was just as effortless: “Pop music.” People are connected with the music that speaks to them, as if [it were] inner voices all their own. With that, the idea really was born to explore these incredible themes and remarkable emotions through the heart and soul of music.
What was your casting process like, assembling an ensemble that includes industry stalwarts such as Sir Derek Jacobi?
The great Derek Jacobi, perhaps the world’s greatest living Shakespearean actor, was literally a dream. I remember talking to his agent, saying I wish we could attract someone as wonderful as Derek, and the agent asked, “Shall I ask him?” I had no idea how Derek would react to our adaptation, but in the end, it was the boldness of our approach that attracted him. He adores finding new windows into Shakespeare’s world, and with our film he was thrilled to find so many. For Rebel Wilson, not all of her fans know she began her career in theater, so we were looking to tap into that part of her.
As with all the grown-up cast, we were looking for people who instantly grabbed us with a sense of familiarity—only for us to then quickly turn all that on its head. The amazing Jason Isaacs, the wonderful Dan Fogler, Rupert Everett, and Rupert Graves—the combination of them all was just spectacular. As for the younger cast, that was a completely different approach. [We did] a worldwide casting call initially, looking for triple threats and fresh faces. All culminating in us bringing a number of actors out to Italy for a screen test. Standing there watching the cast come to life was one of the most thrilling moments of my career.
Filming on location in Verona lends the film a flair of history and authenticity. What was the location scout and shoot like?
Authenticity was simply everything. Knowing the film would take these musical leaps, we felt everything else had to be perfectly grounded in the real world for audiences to be able to embrace it. That meant no sound stages, no green screen. We were going to Italy and would be shooting in real castles and on real mountains in the snow and rain and cold. It had to be exactly like it would have been back in 1301. That meant endless location scouting and months of searching different castles and locations that would stand in for Verona and these key locations.
Every time we’d find another spectacular place, we’d need to wrestle with the challenges of moving a 400-person crew there. It was a daunting task. Ultimately, we settled on three main locations: a castle for the Capulet estate (Torrechiara), our stand-in for Verona (the amazing town of Castell’Arquato), and then Verona itself. Production, which lasted 43 days in the heart of winter, had us working virtually all night shoots. To say it was a challenge would be an understatement, but it was precisely those challenges that ultimately helped create that exact authenticity we were committed to achieving.
Did you face any other big challenges in bringing your vision to life?
The biggest challenge in bringing this, or frankly any work, to life is maintaining the clarity of your vision through a million pieces of shifting sand beneath your feet—and oftentimes years of work to get from here to there. Hope, expectations, plans, and ideas are constantly being flipped on their head. That’s just the name of the game, and our job is to somehow manage to stay on course regardless of the winding roads you find yourself on.
One of the biggest challenges is maintaining that specific vision over time. The cast arrives, does their amazing work and then goes on with their lives. It’s the same with the crew. All while you may be editing for another year. Every day you need to stay clear on your compass. So much can change in the world between the time you start shooting and when you’re finally ready to share it with the world, and as the filmmaker, it tends to fall to you to maintain the clarity of that vision that likely began years before all the way to the final step.
The musical is a genre that inherently plays best on the big screen. As a filmmaker, why is it important to have your work seen in theaters?
There’s simply no avoiding the fact that in a world where you can watch literally any piece of content ever created on your phone, getting people to physically go to the theater is harder than ever before. And yet that is what movies have always been meant to be: a collective experience with a bunch of strangers coming together for this moment, for this movie, in this place. It’s a remarkably special gift audiences give of their time.
Now, more than ever, keeping audiences committed is crucial for the filmgoing experience to continue and thrive. Movies have always been meant to be a part of the zeitgeist conversation, and there’s simply no better way to embrace that than experiencing them together. Yes, theaters have better sound and better picture, but it is this mutual, collective experience that we dream of.
How are you partnering with Briarcliff Entertainment on the release?
The most challenging part of releasing any film in today’s environment is finding a way to cut through all the noise out there in the world. As an independent [production,] we don’t have the reach of the major studios that can plaster their trailers and art all over the world. We have to be far more specific and far more surgical in finding ways to reach our audiences with our messaging and the experience that awaits them.
The social media landscape has changed advertising forever. The whole world of communication changes virtually daily. In the end, a huge part of any campaign is about trusting your gut. Do we feel the message has an impact? Do we believe we are sharing the right elements of the film before the release? There simply is no set blueprint for how to do this right, and it is up to us and our partners every moment of every day to keep adjusting to the world we’re in.
You have plans to tell more stories in this world; what does the next chapter look like?
Where we are heading with the franchise is an important secret to keep, but what we can say is that the period between 1301 and 1303 was an incredible moment in history where one of the most tyrannical popes—Pope Boniface—was at war with the royal families in an effort to rule the region. This battle between the church and state, when the medieval times were giving way to the Renaissance and the birth of this entire region, is remarkably rich. All with the most fascinating historical characters, who found themselves caught up in this once-in-a-lifetime turning of the tides. It’s a thrilling story that we get to further explore.
What moments in the movie theater have made an impact on you and your work?
When I was 19 years old and going to NYU, I lived across the street from the Quad Cinema. I looked out my window one day and saw they were playing All That Jazz. Amazingly, I had never seen it and really didn’t know much about it I’m embarrassed to say. I went to the 10am showing and was probably the only person there. It literally knocked me out, like nothing before had ever done. I stayed for all five screenings that day, watching it over and over, studying every moment of every frame, and marveling at how Mr. Fosse used every aspect of filmmaking to create this extraordinary work. That experience has impacted me my entire career.
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