Shakespeare in Love would go on to win seven Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Actress (Gwyneth Paltrow), Best Supporting Actress (Judi Dench), and Best Original Screenplay. In 1593 London, William Shakespeare is a sometime player in the Lord Chamberlain's Men and poor playwright for Philip Henslowe, owner of The Rose Theatre. Shakespeare is working on a new comedy, "Romeo and Ethel, the Pirate's Daughter". Suffering from writer's block, he has barely begun the play, and is further distracted by attempts both to seduce Rosaline, the mistress of Richard Burbage, owner of the rival Curtain Theatre and to convince Burbage to buy the
Shakespeare in Love write something "a little more cheerful next time, for Twelfth Night". Viola and Shakespeare say their goodbyes, and he vows to immortalise her, as he imagines the beginning of "Twelfth Night", in character as a castaway disguised as a man after a voyage to a strange land. The original idea for "Shakespeare in Love" was suggested to screenwriter Marc Norman in the late 1980s by his son Zachary. Norman wrote a draft screenplay which he presented to director Edward Zwick, which attracted Julia Roberts, who agreed to play Viola. However, Zwick disliked Norman's screenplay and hired the playwright Tom Stoppard