Aaliyah Made Her Acting Debut in Romeo Must Die 17 Months Before She Was Killed in a Plane Crash

Aaliyah's influence across music, fashion and film, can still be felt nearly 24 years after the talented star's untimely death.

On March 24, 2000, Aaliyah made her acting debut in the action film Romeo Must Die, starring opposite martial artist and actor Jet Li, who played Han.

The action-packed movie oozes sleekness and the kind of energy that makes you forget it's loosely based on Shakespeare's most recreated play, Romeo and Juliet.

Han and Trish's parents are rivals, mixed up in the risky real estate business in Oakland, Calif. Both children hold disdain for their parents' criminal activity, but team up to delve into their world when their brothers encounter one another, leaving those around them with more questions than answers.

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Aaliyah received praise for her role as Trish O'Day, which was reportedly created with Janet Jackson in mind before the young starlet's audition blew Warner Bros. executives out of the water.

Romeo Must Die was a box office hit, bringing in $91 million and debuting behind Erin Brockovich. The accompanying soundtrack, "Romeo Must Die: The Soundtrack," also enjoyed great success

The R&B-infused collection of songs also featured recordings from DMX, Destiny's Child, Joe and Ginuwine. Of the 18 songs on the soundtrack, six do not appear in the film. The stand out song remains one of Aaliyah's most popular tracks to this day: "Try Again."

Off airplay alone, "Try Again" peaked at No. 1 on Billboard’s Hot 100 Airplay, No. 3 on the Mainstream Top 40 and No. 4 on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs charts.

"Try Again" was nominated for awards by seven different organizations from 2000 to 2001 — the Teen Choice Awards, the Soul Train Lady of Soul Awards, the Billboard Music and Music Video Awards, the Grammys, the NAACP Image Awards, and the MTV Video Music Awards. It would take home the VMAs for Best Female Video and Best Video from a Film at the 2000 ceremony.

During a 2023 episode of the I AM HIP-HOP podcast, Timbaland revealed that he came up with the song's catchy beat by accident.

"I was playing with this keyboard, and it was a mistake," he recalled. "My engineer Jimmy Douglass caught it. I said, ‘Jimmy did you catch that lil rhythm?' He said, ‘I sure did. So he caught it and played it back, I put the beat on it. I said, ‘Oooh, chop it right there,’ and he chopped it right there.”

Aaliyah released three studio albums before her tragic death in 2001. Her life was tragically cut short when she died in a plane crash in the Bahamas after filming her music video “Rock the Boat” on Aug. 25, 2001.

Following Aaliyah’s death, her musical and personal legacy lived on: She received three posthumous Grammy Award nominations for Aaliyah and earned nods for her acting in the vampire movie Queen of the Damned.

In honor of the late singer's birthday in January 2025, Barbie released a doll in Aaliyah's likeness, dressed in an all-black outfit similar to the one she wore in her music video for "One In a Million." The Detroit News reported that the doll sold out within 30 minutes of its midnight release.