by Elizabeth Snead, USA TODAY

If Shakespeare were alive today, he'd be a stud in the movie business," Shakespeare in Love screenwriter Marc Norman theorizes. "He'd have a three-picture deal, be driving a Porsche 911 and living in Bel-Air." When it fell to Norman to concoct a believable take on the life of the greatest writer of the English language, he was daunted, to say the least.

"There are only a handful of facts that stand up to examination, and it's amazing so little is known of him," Norman explains.

He opted to look at Elizabethan times as if it were Hollywood today and to view young Shakespeare as a struggling writer, a former actor just starting out in a fast-moving and lucrative new entertainment industry. "Once I looked at him like that, I knew what he was," Norman says. "He was horny, broke and desperate for ideas - the eternal status of a professional writer."

Shakespeare in Love may not be an altogether scholarly look at the life and loves of Shakespeare, but that's not kept it off critics' lists of the year's best films. It also has garnered several Golden Globe nominations: best comedy, best actress (Gwyneth Paltrow), supporting actress (Judi Dench), supporting actor (Geoffrey Rush), director (John Madden) and screenplay (Norman and Tom Stoppard).

The film is something of a surprise success, considering that it's not a modern love story but a ribald, randy romp through Elizabethan times, an imaginary fable of young Shakespeare's love life incorporating fiction with real characters and events.

How much of the film is based on fact and how much is fiction?

"It's a lot of fiction and very little reality," Norman says, although he admits to focusing on Romeo and Juliet as the turning point in Shakespeare's career because it actually was.

"It was his breakthrough play," Norman says. "Before that, he was not doing anything radical. But when he combined tragedy and comedy into one play, it was groundbreaking, and the play was a huge hit. Audiences loved it! After that, he was cranking."

Norman speculated that, like most writers, Shakespeare relied on events in his own life for inspiration. If so, what would have inspired him to write such a romantic play?

"If he were a typical writer, he would steal everything he could from people around him, his relationships, from people on the street. Could there have been a doomed love affair with a woman who was the first to believe in him as a writer?"

Probably not. There's no evidence of such a woman in Shakespeare's life. But other players in the film were based on actual people. Here's a guide to separate the real from the fantasy:

Will Shakespeare (Joseph Fiennes)

He wrote 38 plays as well as the most famous sonnets and poetry of all time. Oddly, little is known of him as a man. "Much of what we know comes from legal documents: his marriage contract and some property deeds in Stratford-upon-Avon," Norman says.

According to Norman, Shakespeare was basically the black-sheep son of a glove maker (his brother went into the family business) who wanted to come home a hero. He managed to make his fortune in theater, retire with some nice lands in Stratford and count his rents until his death in 1616. He was married to Anne Hathaway, an older woman of property in Stratford, and they had two daughters and a son, who died at the age of eleven.

As for Shakespeare's acting in a play he'd also written, that's historically accurate, though it wasn't in Romeo and Juliet. Billing records show that Shakespeare played the ghost in a production of Hamlet.

It is, however, unlikely that Shakespeare sported a pierced earring, as Fiennes does. "That's the biggest fiction of all," Norman says. "In reality, Shakespeare was a pretty ugly guy."

Viola De Lesseps (Gwyneth Paltrow)

She did not exist, although there were many women at that time in her situation, forced to marry men they did not love for convenience and social climbing.

"Women in court back then were passed around to cement alliances," Norman says. "They didn't have much choice."

And well-bred young women really did brush (or scrape) their teeth with frayed wooden sticks.

Philip Henslowe (Geoffrey Rush)

He really was the owner of the Rose Theatre, managing it with the Admiral's Men, a group of actors led by actor Ned Alleyn. He and Alleyn later built the Fortune Theatre, and Henslowe acted as banker for theatrical companies, buying plays, providing costumes and money.

Christopher "Kit" Marlowe (Rupert Everett)

Shakespeare's rival in the film and in real life. He was one of the University Wits, a group that redefined theater with dramas and comedies using blank verse and featuring a moral hero. "He was actually far more interesting than Shakespeare," Norman says. "He was a genius, a homosexual and a spy for Queen Elizabeth to help ferret out Catholic plots against her crown." He died at 29 in a pub brawl in 1593, the year the film is set. No one knows who killed him or why, though some suspect it was a political assassination. His death left the stage open for Shakespeare to step in as favored playwright.

Elizabeth I (Judi Dench)

She reigned in England from 1558 to 1603. She was highly intelligent and well educated, rare for women of her day. She really did love plays but probably didn't ever mix with commoners at the theater. In the film, Viola says, "I love to have plays performed for me." Elizabeth snaps back, "They are performed for me!" And indeed, they were. It was her support of this new medium that fostered its growth during her reign. She really wore extravagant costumes, influencing the fashions of the time, and, as in the film, had a hot temper and a cutting sense of humor.

The Earl of Wessex (Colin Firth)

The man Viola is promised to marry is an invented character, although there were many aristocrats with fancy titles and no money in those days. He was merely trying to make a good and profitable marriage, which was a common practice.

Richard Burbage (Martin Clunes)

He existed and was the son of theater owner and actor James Burbage. As in the film, Burbage was the star of the Chamberlain's Men acting troupe. Considered a great actor, he played many top Shakespeare roles, including Malvolio, Richard III, Hamlet, Othello and King Lear.

Sam Gosse (Daniel Brocklebank)

The character, who plays Juliet during rehearsals, is fictional. But women really were not permitted to act in Elizabethan theater, so boys often took the female parts. Once their voices changed, they had to find other work.

Edward 'Ned' Alleyn (Ben Affleck)

In the film, he's a favored actor. In reality, he was a big box office draw, the leading actor of his time (1566-1626), kind of a 16th century Tom Cruise. He retired in 1613 and became a patron of the arts.

Sir Edmund Tilney (Simon Callow)

He was the Master of the Revels, acting as the entertainment secretary of his day. All scripts had to be "approved" by him for a few shillings, which came to a whopping 10% of a writer's commission. "What he was really looking for was not sex or violence," Norman says. "He was looking for sedition, Catholic sentiments in plays, much the way McCarthy looked for communism in movies in the '50s."

Makepeace (Steven Beard)

He's the preacher who rails against the evils of theater to a gathering crowd, which real preachers did do. They condemned all theater - the major source of mass public entertainment - including Shakespeare's work.

"Puritan preachers like Makepeace in the film really did fulminate against the theater," Norman says. "They were like the right-wing Republicans railing against the National Endowment of the Arts. The big arguments were the bubonic plague, as well as the prostitutes and pickpockets that were in the playhouses. But (Queen) Elizabeth loved plays, and they couldn't overcome her."