Nickolas with a K

Happy 20th anniversary Romeo + Juliet (1996) 

“Next Tuesday, November 1st is the twentieth anniversary of me second film Romeo + Juliet. It was an extraordinary creative journey, the likes of which I’m sure the cast, crew and close collaborators will never quite experience again. Many doubted the preposterous ambition of setting Shakespeare’s beloved tragic romance in a heighted creative world, with a then relatively unknown Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes, but we did make it, overcoming incredible odds shooting entirely in Mexico. Over the next 7 days, the team and I are going to go through our unpublished archives and as a celebration of time passing, release previously unseen items leading up to R+J’s 20th birthday. Think of it as a big shoutout to Shakespeare himself, whose 400th anniversary is this year.

P.S: If you had anything to do with the making of the film, or are simply, just a fan and want to share, don’t hold back. Though I’m still getting down with ‘The Get Down’, the team and I so much enjoy looking at everything.”

David’s relationship with Keith [Mathew St. Patrick] was often referred to as a new standard for a depicting a complex gay relationship on television. You wound up on the cover of The Advocate. Did you get a sense the character could be a catalyst for changing minds about same-sex couples?A longtime stage actor, Michael C. Hall had never been in front of a television camera when he was cast as David Fisher, the closeted heir to his family’s funeral business, on HBO’s Six Feet Under.

“Luckily, I was playing a character who was very tense,” Hall tells mental_floss, “so I didn’t have to pretend I wasn’t. I could funnel that nervousness into the performance.”

With the series celebrating its 15th anniversary on June 3, Hall spoke with us about the show’s legacy, David’s impact on gay and lesbian culture, and the emotional torture of trying to binge-watch a show this heavy.      

I’m back, you bastards