Noah Jupe and Sadie Sink set to make West End debut in Icke’s Romeo & Juliet

noah jupe is heading to the Harold Pinter Theatre alongside Sadie Sink for a production of Romeo & Juliet that combines film awards momentum, a close creative shorthand between the pair and director Robert Icke’s modern reimagining. The casting and recent publicity put both young actors at the centre of attention as the play prepares to open next month.

Ida dinner shoot: a staged 1950s romance before rehearsals

Hours before an evening service at Ida, a tiny family-run neighbourhood Italian in west London, the windows were steaming while an umbrella-buckling January downpour rattled outside. Beneath gallery walls hung with vintage Fellini posters, Sadie Sink and Noah Jupe—dressed in La Dolce Vita–style clothes and sipping Sangiovese—fed each other mouthfuls of pomodoro pasta by candlelight, laughing and whispering with arms entangled as stylists and crew looked on.

The pair posed for images tied to the production: posters from that shoot are papering London’s billboards and Tube tunnels. On the day, wardrobe details included a slip dress by Tom Ford for Sink, a sweater by Ferragamo for Jupe, and a wool jacket with a cotton/linen shirt by Celine.

Noah Jupe on Paul Mescal and Hamnet's awards run

noah jupe appears in Hamnet as Hamlet, with his younger brother Jacobi playing Hamnet, the playwright’s son whose death shapes the story. The film has gone into the BAFTA Film Awards with 11 nominations, among them best actress for Jessie Buckley and best supporting actor for Paul Mescal, and has also been prominent in awards season after a Golden Globes trip where Hamnet "won big. "

Speaking at the Newport Beach Film Festival UK and Ireland Honours, where he received the Breakout Award alongside Archie Madekwe, Harry Melling and Jay Lycurgo, Jupe praised Mescal as a humble, professional, hardworking and passionate presence on set—calling watching him work "enough" to take him as a role model. The Irish actor is noted as currently filming a Beatles biopic and as a Kildare native. Director Chloé Zhao has said the film carries "some energy" from Ireland, and Emily Mortimer also received a nomination for best supporting actress.

Preparing for the Harold Pinter Theatre run from March 16

The production will open at the Harold Pinter Theatre next month and is scheduled to run from March 16. It marks both Sink and Jupe’s London stage debuts. For Sink, it is her first stage project following the conclusion of Stranger Things, where she reprised the role of Max Mayfield after nearly a decade on the show.

The pair have not been working in isolation: they recently admitted they had rehearsed together only twice, though Jupe said preparations were progressing well. He noted the breadth and richness of Shakespeare’s language—saying there is so much context and subtext that one can never truly arrive at a finished point and that they could work for months and still not be done—yet he added he was excited.

Early meetings, chemistry reads and a four-hour first sit-down

Sink and Icke first met in London last summer at a meeting arranged by their agents while Sink was filming a top-secret role on Spider-Man: Brand New Day, which she called "the most Zen" she’s ever felt on a project. What should have been a quick chat stretched into a four-hour meeting of minds, and Sink remembers a chemistry read with Jupe that lasted about an hour. Jupe later recalled they then had to do a "full-on photoshoot. " The two are already finishing each other’s sentences.

Sink offered a knowing smile when asked if she’d been hanging out with costars Tom Holland and Zendaya in the city.

Robert Icke’s angle: coincidence, timing and a modern Verona

Director and playwright Robert Icke has framed this Romeo & Juliet as set in a "version of now" Verona and drawn inspiration from the 1998 film Sliding Doors. Icke said he is less interested in the inevitability of tragedy than in the fragility of the chain of events that lead to it: messages fail, timing betrays the lovers, and a small shift—"If Romeo were to turn up at Juliet’s tomb about four minutes later, he would find her alive"—would change everything. Icke’s recent adaptation of Oedipus, starring Lesley Manville and Mark Strong, has just wrapped up an acclaimed Broadway transfer.

• Key credits and events: Hamnet—11 BAFTA nominations; Jupe as Hamlet; Jacobi Jupe as Hamnet; Newport Beach Breakout Award for Jupe; Romeo & Juliet opening at Harold Pinter Theatre from March 16.