Olivia and Leonard filmed Romeo and Juliet in 1968. Now they’re suing for underage nudity.

Olivia Hussey was just 15 years old when she was on the set of Franco Zeffirelli's Romeo and Juliet.

Her on-screen love interest, Leonard Whiting, was not much older at 16. 

The teenagers, who only had a handful of credits to their name, quickly found themselves at the centre of an international hit when the film was released in 1968. 

"It was actually very overwhelming," Hussey told Fox News in 2018.

"Even when we were shooting, we had reporters waiting for an interview during our lunch and tea breaks. And they had come from all over the world." 

Watch Olivia Hussey and Leonard Whiting in the trailer for Romeo and Juliet. Post continues below. 

Now, over 50 years later, the actors, aged 71 and 72, are suing Paramount Pictures for sexual exploitation and child abuse over the use of nude footage in the film, which includes a scene where Romeo and Juliet are seen partially naked on their wedding night.

According to Variety, the suit alleges that director Zeffirelli, who died in 2019, originally told the pair there wouldn't be nudity in the film and they would wear flesh-coloured undergarments in the bedroom scene. 

However, in the last days of filming, he allegedly encouraged them to film nude while wearing body makeup, saying the film "would fail".

The actors also claim that Zeffirelli showed them where the camera would be while filming and assured them that no nudity would be released in the film. However, they allege they ended up being filmed nude without their knowledge.

"What they were told and what went on were two different things," Tony Marinozzi, the actors' business manager said in a statement to Variety. 

"They trusted Franco. At 16, as actors, they took his lead that he would not violate the trust they had. Franco was their friend, and frankly, at 16, what do they do? There are no options. There was no #MeToo."

Hussey and Whiting are now seeking damages "believed to be in excess of $500 million".

Leonard Whiting and Olivia Hussey in 2018. Image: Phillip Faraone/FilmMagic.

In an interview with the publication, the pair's attorney Solomon Gresen said, "These 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."

According to Variety, the actors' lawsuit relies in part on a California law, which had a December 31, 2022 deadline, that temporarily suspended the statute of limitations for older child sexual abuse claims.

Hussey previously addressed the nude scene, which caused controversy at the time of the film's release, in a 2018 interview with Variety. 

"Nobody my age had done that before," she told the publication, before adding: "It was needed for the film." 

That same year, she told Fox News, "Leonard wasn’t shy at all!" during filming. 

"In the middle of shooting, I just completely forgot I didn’t have clothes on."

After Romeo and Juliet, Hussey went on to appear in films such as Black Christmas, Death on the Nile and Undeclared War. She also lent her voice to video games such as Star Wars: The Old Republic and TV shows such as Superman: The Animated Series. 

In 2015, she reunited with Whiting in the film Social Suicide and three years later, released a memoir Girl on the Balcony.

Whiting, on the other hand, has only appeared in few films since his Romeo days, such as the 1973 film Frankenstein: The True Story. 

The pair, who briefly dated, have since remained lifelong friends. 

Feature Image: Getty/Bettmann.