Leonardo DiCaprio is the actor with whom 2014 begins: the man who made Hollywood howl with his latest film, “The Wolf of Wall Street”. But to his credit there are as many admirers as detractors. Here are some suggestions for you to decide: Leo, do you love him or do you hate him?
5 REASONS TO LOVE IT
He has what distinguishes a star from an actor
Leo has what it takes. It is true that he started out as a pre-teen actor, but for years no one doubted his value as a performer. Scorsese remembers when he first heard about it: Bobby De Niro recommended it to me after working with him on This Boy’s Life (M. Caton-Jones, 1993). And Bob is not one to recommend people. We only coincided after Titanic (James Cameron, 1997). Good job, Scorsese continues, but it was his extraordinary performance in What’s Eating Gilbert Grape that convinced me it was something different? (Lasse Hallstrom, 1993). DiCaprio, attending FRAMES at a New York hotel besieged by One Direction fans, smiles. He doesn’t raise a ruckus like that anymore. I was also a teen idol. And, as a kid, that put me on. But I realized that it didn’t last. It makes me proud to know that I have become the actor that I wanted to be, underlines DiCaprio with conviction.
He became Scorsese’s right-hand man.
De Niro discovered it, but in Scorsese Leo found the teacher he needed when his career started to lose its meaning. From day one, I felt nothing but respect for him, for his work and for his cinematic knowledge. And after five films together, the freedom is such that, although we belong to different generations, we spend so much time together that our tastes, our objectives, are the same, the actor grows bolder. The feeling is mutual. Scorsese says working with DiCaprio brought back his enthusiasm. After Gangs of New York (1999), three more films arrived (The Aviator, The Departed, Shutter Island), and now The Wolf of Wall Street. Marty, to me, is the best director there is, DiCaprio concedes. And he’s the best when it comes to bringing out what’s inside of me as an actor.
Carry out risky and commercial projects
DiCaprio has an ace up his sleeve: Appian Way, the production company he’s been a Hollywood actor with for years. With her he has released, in addition to his latest films, titles such as the environmental documentary The 11th Hour (L. Conners Petersen & N. Conners, 2011) or Public Enemies (Michael Mann, 2009). He has taken such a liking to production that he even does it on a personal basis, as with The Ides of March (George Clooney, 2011), of which he was executive producer. It is well understood selfishness. At the time, being a producer gave me access to better films. I didn’t want to sit and wait for them to be offered to me. The company grew and I started getting material that didn’t include me as an actor, but that I wanted to see on screen. Do you have my fingerprint? Sure. I work on each of these films to make them come true, I don’t just put my name on them. Nowadays movies like The Aviator or Blood Diamond (Edward Zwick, 2006) or The Wolf of Wall Street, epic dramas or big budget films for adult audiences, are impossible to make in the system. Someone must continue to force the machine, he confirms.
Your ecological conscience is not a pose
If Scorsese is his film guru, Al Gore is in the fight for the environment. His commitment is not lip service and his money supports what he preaches. In addition to always driving a hybrid car and, he says, choosing conventional flights over private jets, DiCaprio organizes millionaire pro-ecological events: Not that I mean to brag about it, but this year I organized an auction at Christie’s in which I obtained around 28 million euros for the preservation of the environment, note, proud. A personal cause where the tigers, animals with which he identifies, are his right eye. Part of the proceeds went towards the creation of natural parks which serve as a natural refuge in Nepal, he explains. Apparently, there are only 3,000 wild tigers left on Earth, hunted for their fur and persecuted to sell their penises, a powerful aphrodisiac according to Chinese tradition, on the black market, something totally false, DiCaprio protests. Leo speaks with pride of the 40 tigers that have been born in the last three years in these refuges. It’s really cool. What yes? Almost as much as sharing the stage with John Kerry during the 2004 presidential campaign: an 11-state tour in which he spoke about the damage done by the Bush administration to the environment.
After 20 years on camera, he still wants it all
To be exact, 24 years old: those who go from his debut in front of a camera, in the television series La Nueva Lassie (1989), until today. And, to be precise, the protagonist of The Wolf of Wall Street does not want everything: he wants that and more, a point that twins him with Jordan Belfort, the broker he plays in the film. But in a positive sense: DiCaprio hasn’t lost an iota of the ambition that took him to the top. It was this courage that led him to convince Scorsese that he had to direct a project that the studios had rejected, the desire to do what he wants, when he wants and how he wants. True or false: I think a lot about the 16-year-old brat who wanted to be an actor and what has changed since then. And what has not changed. I’m as proud of the choices I made then as I am now. Then, as now, I was the most ambitious actor I could be, and in that I haven’t changed and I don’t intend to change.
5 REASONS TO HATE IT
Living under the obsession of the Oscars
At least he’s honest. Not as much as Robert Downey Jr. in the days of Chaplin (R. Attenborough, 1992) –Give me an Oscar!, he shouted in full psychotropic high–, but almost. Anyone who says they don’t want it is lying, Leo says clearly. The impossible romance between DiCaprio and the Academy began more than 15 years ago, with Titanic (1997). The film made him a star, but no one remembers him in the 14 nominations (and 11 statuettes) the film earned. Leo, instead of facing his absence like a man and joining his teammates, took him like a child… and went to the gala. The Academy seems to have moved on and has since nominated him three times (The Aviator, Blood Diamond and What’s Eating Gilbert Grape), but he doesn’t forget: the best thing about my last nomination is that I was going as a supporting actor, one of the first awards they give. This way you get rid of the nervousness much sooner and have fun the rest of the night, he adds. Scorsese explains his point of view on the matter: As large as it is, the Academy remains a group. And there are always favorites, favorite actors. For sentimental reasons. Because of how they sell you. The moment you get caught. There are many who have been forgotten in the history of the Academy, he tells FOTOGRAMAS between laughs and taking as an example his own story of falling in love with these awards, a bad feeling that was finally broken with The Departed (2007). That said, Scorsese wraps up, Leo deserves not one, but multiple Oscars.
Fame (or his colleagues) confuse him
Recent statements by George Clooney underline this: DiCaprio surrounds himself with an entourage that takes him away from reality, which deprives him of seeing how things really are. His meeting was limited to a basketball game: They said they were going to crush us, commented Clooney. And we crush them. The difference between what Leo’s colleagues said in that game and what actually happened made me realize how important it is for someone to tell you things by name, on the pitch and in life. I don’t know if Leo has anyone like that around. Now, with maturity fast approaching, he could have it, but a few years ago he didn’t. The DiCaprio gang (which included, among others, actors like Lukas Haas, Tobey Maguire or Kevin Connolly, models and thugs converted into full-time bodyguards), was known in the 90s for his deviations in the night New Yorker. Her nickname says it all: it was the Pussy Posse, the gang of hot girls. Rich, famous, handsome (some more than others) and palmers of everything Leo wanted. And, to add insult to injury, DiCaprio and his boys never tipped. Billionaire and miser. To hate him, right?
It’s the typical guaperas that will flirt
Don Juan 2.0, DiCaprio takes them all to the streets, and he doesn’t deny it. I never said my life was boring, he defends himself. But that’s not what gives him a bad image. His conquests have a shorter expiration date than those of Clooney himself and his list of exes looks like a catalog of high fashion: he only dates or is seen with models (if that’s lingerie, so much the better) and romantic breakups. when things threaten to get serious… or when they’re approaching 35. Kate Moss, Giselle Bundchen, Bar Refaeli, Erin Heatherton or Toni Garrn, some of her girlfriends, can testify to this. I present myself to women as I am, and I appreciate them for who they are, the actor says of himself. Besides, he wants us to believe that he is a romantic and that his favorite film of the genre is When Harry Met Sally (R. Reiner, 1988). Does his money and fame help you? He doesn’t deny it, but he says that’s not all. I know girls respond to a good personality, he says.
He has star tics
Apart from Scorsese, we have already seen that he adores him, or Baz Luhrmann, who directed him in his version of Romeo and Juliet, in 1996, and in The Great Gatsby (2013), and considers him the best actor not only of his generation. , but of history, it is rare that DiCaprio never repeats director in his projects. James Cameron, Ridley Scott or Christopher Nolan, three directors who like to work with the same cast of actors, no longer hired him. Some say it’s because of his difficult nature on set, where he often plays in clashes like the one he had with Quentin Tarantino on the set of Django Unchained (2012) . Jamie Foxx told us: With Quentin he had very big differences, a lot. Once the dialogue was over with the fists, and thank goodness the guns weren’t really loaded. Everything became calm again, but I didn’t understand what happened. There are wayward kids who think they are the most because they worked with Scorsese.
He can’t laugh at himself
Does anyone remember DiCaprio in a comedy? Even Tom Cruise knows how to make fun of himself. DiCaprio No. On the contrary, it is even difficult for her to see him laugh on the screen. That may change with The Wolf of Wall Street, as, against all odds, it will compete for Best Comedy at the Golden Globes. For Terence Winter, head of plots for the Boardwalk Empire series and screenwriter of the film, there are scenes in which DiCaprio and Jonah Hill have nothing to envy to Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy. When my wife read the script, she was holding our newborn son. She laughed so hard that she almost fell to the ground. This will be an opportunity to bust another myth: if Garbo spoke, maybe DiCaprio is laughing now. And make us laugh. Then we won’t know whether to love him or hate him even more.
