mizgnomer:David Tennant as Romeo in the Royal Shakespeare Company’s Romeo and Juliet (2000) - Part F
mizgnomer:David Tennant as Romeo in the Royal Shakespeare Company’s Romeo and Juliet (2000) - Part Four David Tennant on playing Romeo (excerpt from Players of Shakespeare 5: Further Essays in Shakespearean Performance by Players with the Royal Shakespeare Company):How old did you imagine your Romeo to be?I think Alex [Gilbreath, who played Juliet] and I both felt we were at the far end of being able to get away with it, but it’s more difficult for Juliet because her age is stated so explicitly. Strictly speaking, Romeo could be any age, in that there’s no textual evidence to suggest exactly how old he is, but of course there’s something in the character which suggests teenage angst and perhaps hotheadedness. I didn’t focus too specifically on an age because i was twenty-nine when I did it, and i didn’t want to spend the whole production feeling like I was trying to play a teenager. I didn’t want that to be my focus. So I kept it, even to myself, slightly vague. I suppose I thought of him as a young man, and beyond that I didn’t spend too much time worrying about exactly how old he was. I think as human beings we tend not to focus on what age we are when we’re having whatever experiences it is that we’re having. So I tried not to make it too big an issue, which was perhaps partly my own fear of being slightly too old to be playing it.Photo credits include: Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, photostage.co.uk, the Royal Shakespeare Company, and more Other Posts in this Set: [ One ] [ Two ] [ Three ] -- source link