Two actors who starred in Franco Zeffirelli’s 1968 rendition of Romeo and Juliet are suing for over $725 million over a intercourse scene they had been made to movie as youngsters.
Olivia Hussey, 71, and Leonard Whiting, 72, had been simply 15 and 16 years outdated on the time of filming the Shakespearean traditional.
The pair filed a lawsuit on the Santa Monica Superior Court in California this week, accusing Paramount Pictures of sexual harassment, fraud, sexual abuse, and intentional infliction of emotional misery.
The British actors stated Zeffirelli initially informed them there wouldn’t be nutidy within the movie, however by the point they arrived on set, issues had modified.
According to the pair, Zeffirelli informed them they need to act whereas bare “or the picture would fail” and their careers can be harm.
The actors “believed they had no choice but to act in the nude in body makeup as demanded”, based on the lawsuit.
“What they were told and what went on were two different things,” business supervisor Tony Marinozzi stated.
“They trusted Franco. At 16, as actors, they took his lead that he would not violate that trust they had.
“Franco was their friend, and frankly, at 16, what do they do?” Marinozzi added in an announcement to the outlet. There aren’t any choices. There was no #MeToo.”
The pair’s lawyer Solomon Gresen stated the actors “were very young naïve children in the ’60s who had no understanding of what was about to hit them.”
“All of a sudden they were famous at a level they never expected, and in addition they were violated in a way they didn’t know how to deal with,” he stated.
The pair are in search of $500 million (A$727m) in damages — which is the quantity the movie has made since its launch over 50 years in the past.
