In the new animated movie "Gnomeo & Juliet," in theaters Feb. 11, Shakespeare's most famous romantic tragedy gets a happier ending in a story about feuding neighboring garden gnomes, with an Elton John soundtrack and a celebrated, mostly British voice cast including Emily Blunt, James McAvoy, Patrick Stewart, Jason Statham, Michael Caine, Maggie Smith and Ozzy Osbourne.

 

Given the garden milieu, we asked John, cast members and guests about their gardening experiences and other green topics at the film's press conference and Hollywood premiere.

 

"We have a vegetable garden, completely organic. I have two beautiful gardens but I loathe gardening," admitted John, blaming having to mow and weed his grandmother's garden as a boy. He also recycles and buys unbleached organic cotton diapers for his son, Zachary. "They're much less harmful to the environment, and we put them in biodegradable disposable bags," said his partner, David Furnish. John also believes in carbon offsets. "I fly a lot, so I buy forests and plant forests," he says. "It's very important to do that."

 

John hits like "Saturday Night's Alright for Fighting," "Benny and the Jets," and "Your Song" are on the soundtrack along with newly composed songs, and he serves as executive producer on "Gnomeo," which has been a labor of love for him and Furnish for over a decade. For their next film project, they're developing John's life story. Otherwise, he's open to life's surprises. "I don't really have any more ambitions other than I just want to work and do excellent stuff and enjoy it." He's still planning to tour and perform live, which he deems "so much more comfortable for me now. As I grow older I'm much more content in my own skin because when I come off stage now I have a balance in my life. I fly home every night after a show and get in my own bed and I have a wonderful partner and wonderful friends. I can remember things. I don't take drugs anymore. It's a whole new world out there. I can remember the words to the songs," he noted. "I don't take it for granted anymore. I really relish it and love it."

 

 

McAvoy, who voices Gnomeo, has an herb garden and he composts. "We recycle. We try to be green-conscious," he said. He remembers the two garden gnomes in his grandparents' yard, one baring his backside and the other gaping at him, as "really grimy and covered in moss. I thought they looked a bit seedy, unlike the child-friendly ones in this film." Blunt (Juliet) remembers being afraid of gnomes as a child, but "wouldn't mind having one now." She doesn't garden, but might like to try it, as her parents love it. Indoors, she has traded bottled water for a water filter.

 

Having acted in "Romeo and Juliet" at 19 was a big advantage, Blunt confirmed. "It was great to hear that they wanted a tough little Juliet like the one I'd done on stage." The need to project that's necessary in a theater was equally helpful for McAvoy. "In animated moves I get paid to hyperventilate and lose my voice, so knowing how to do a proper vocal warm-up was quite handy," he explained. He loved the fact that the movie has turned Shakespeare's themes of forgiveness and anti-prejudice into something appropriate for kids. "In 'Romeo and Juliet' everybody dies or commits suicide or takes drugs or kills someone or has sex with someone they shouldn't. But with garden gnomes you can give them all the morals and little tidbits without the suicide, sex, death, drugs," he pointed out.

 

Stewart, who brings a bronze statue of Shakespeare to life — the second of three times he's played the bard this year, as he's about to star in a play about the playwright's last days — has a fishing gnome in his 10-acre garden. "I have roses, an orchard, tomatoes, cucumbers, apples. This year, for the first time, I'm drinking my own apple juice. It's delicious," he declared. He also drives a Lexus hybrid, having given his Prius to his daughter, and at his London flat, he has installed solar panels. He also bikes and walks around his neighborhood. "Walking is one of my passions," he said.

 

"I'm an obsessive recycler and I do try to buy organic," said Ashley Jensen, who has become "much more aware of what I put in his mouth and what I put in my own mouth" since giving birth to her son Francis in October 2009. Jensen, who voices water-spouting frog Nannette in the movie, also shops at  farmers markets and vintage shops for clothing. She has another voiceover role coming up for the holidays, "Arthur Christmas." "I'm an elf in that," she noted.

 

Matt Lucas, a dedicated recycler, loved the ease of his "Gnomeo" gig. "You can do it sitting down and don't have to have any heavy prosthetics like I always do. It's about half a day every six months," he noted. As is customary, he recorded his role of Benny solo, and met many of his co-stars for the first time at the premiere, where magician David Copperfield, now performing at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, was a guest. "I have 11 islands in the Bahamas and we recycle there. We're green and getting greener," he said, adding that he turns off lights when he leaves a room.

 

Premiere guest Maria Canals Barrera told us that plastic bottles have been banned in favor of recyclable paper cups on the set of "Wizards of Waverly Place," and at home, she's always finding fun new uses for boxes of all shapes and sizes. The Disney Channel series is coming to an end after four years, and she has her eye on a turquoise vase, a collection of framed sugar packets and a red-hatted gnome as souvenirs. "I can put it in my garden," offered the actress, who has a role in Tom Hanks' "Larry Crowne," due out July 1.

 

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