LEONARDO DICAPRIO: 5 REASONS TO LOVE HIM AND 5 REASONS TO HATE HIM
Leonardo DiCaprio is the actor with whom 2014 starts: the man who has Hollywood howling with his latest film, "The Wolf of Wall Street." But to his credit there are as many admirers as detractors. Here are some suggestions to help you make up your mind: Leo, do you love him or hate him?
5 REASONS TO LOVE IT
He has what distinguishes a star from an actor
Leo has what it takes. Okay, he started out as a pre-adolescent actor, but for years no one doubts his worth 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 the type to go around recommending people. We did not meet until after Titanic (James Cameron, 1997). Good work, Scorsese continues, but what convinced me it was something different was his extraordinary performance in Who Does Gilbert Grape Love? (Lasse Hallström, 1993). DiCaprio, who attends FOTOGRAMAS at a New York hotel besieged by One Direction fans, smiles. He no longer makes noise like this. I was also a teenage idol. And, as a kid, this made me. But I realized that it doesn't last. I am proud to know that I have become the actor I wanted to be, DiCaprio emphasizes with conviction.
He has become Scorsese's right hand man
De Niro discovered him, but in Scorsese, Leo found the teacher he needed when his career began to lose its way. From the first day I felt nothing but respect for him, for his work and for his cinematographic 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 goals, are the same, the actor is emboldened. The feeling is reciprocal. Scorsese says working with DiCaprio restored his enthusiasm. After Gangs of New York (1999), three more films came (The Aviator, The Departed, Shutter Island), and now, The Wolf of Wall Street. Marty, to me, is the best director there is, grants DiCaprio. And he is the best when it comes to getting what I have inside as an actor.
Take out risk and commercial projects
DiCaprio has an ace up his sleeve: Appian Way, the producer with whom he has been one of the Hollywood players 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 so much pleasure in producing that he even does it in a personal capacity, such as with The Ides of March (George Clooney, 2011), of which he was an executive producer. It is selfishness well understood. At the time, being a producer gave me access to better films. I didn't want to sit around waiting for them to be offered. The company grew and I began to receive material that did not include me as an actor, but that I wanted to see on the screen. Do you have my print? Of course. I work on each of these films to make them come true, I don't just put my name. In these times, films like The Aviator or Blood Diamond (Edward Zwick, 2006) or The Wolf of Wall Street, epic dramas or high-budget cinema for an adult audience, are impossible to make within the system. Someone has to keep forcing the machine, he confirms.
Your ecological conscience is not a pose
If Scorsese is his guru in film, Al Gore is in the fight for the environment. His commitment is not lip service and his money backs up what he preaches. In addition to always driving a hybrid car and, he says, choosing conventional flights to private jets, DiCaprio organizes millionaire pro-green events: Not that I want to brag about it, but this year I put on an auction at Christie's that brought in close to 28 million euros. euros for the conservation of the environment, apostille, proud. A personal cause where tigers, animals he identifies with, are his right eye. Part of the proceeds went to the creation of natural parks that 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 hunted to sell, on the black market, their penis, a powerful aphrodisiac according to Chinese tradition, something totally false, protests DiCaprio. Leo speaks with pride of the 40 tigers that have been born in the last three years in these refuges. This is really cool. What if? Almost as much as sharing the stage with John Kerry in the 2004 presidential campaign: an 11-state tour in which he spoke of the damage the Bush Administration had caused to the environment.
After 20 years in front of the camera, he still wants it all
To be exact, 24 years: those that go from his debut in front of a camera, in the TV series La nueva Lassie (1989), until today. And, to be precise, the protagonist of The Wolf of Wall Street does not want it all: he wants that and more, a point that pairs him with Jordan Belfort, the broker that he embodies in the film. But on a positive note: DiCaprio hasn't lost an iota of the ambition that brought him to the top. That courage was what led him to convince Scorsese that he had to direct a project that the studies had rejected, the desire to do what he wants, when he wants and how he wants. Good or bad: I think a lot about the 16-year-old brat who wanted to be an actor and what has changed since then. And in what has not changed. I am just as proud of the choices I made then as I do now. Then, as now, I was the most ambitious actor that I could be, and in that I have not changed nor do I plan to change.
5 REASONS TO HATE IT
Live under the Oscar obsession
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 screamed in full psychotropic high–, but almost. Anyone who says he doesn't want it is lying, says Leo 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 nobody remembered him in the 14 nominations (and 11 statuettes) that the film won. Leo, instead of facing the absence of him as a man and joining his companions, took it as a child ... and went to the gala. The Academy seems to have turned the page and, since then, has nominated him three times (The Aviator, Blood Diamond and Who Does Gilbert Grape Love), but he does not forget: The best thing about my last candidacy was that I was going as a Supporting Actor, one of the first prizes they give. That way you get rid of the nervousness much earlier, and have fun the rest of the night, he adds. Scorsese exposes his point of view on the matter: Big as it is, the Academy is still 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 forgotten in the history of the Academy, he says to FOTOGRAMAS between laughs and taking as an example his own history of heartbreak with these awards, an ill will that was finally broken with Infiltrados (2007). That said, Scorsese ends, Leo deserves not one, but many Oscars.
Fame (or his colleagues) confuse you
Recent statements by George Clooney point this out: DiCaprio surrounds himself with an entourage that takes him away from reality, deprives him of seeing how things really are. His encounter was limited to a basketball game: They said they were going to crush us, Clooney commented. 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 his name, on the court and in life. I don't know if Leo has someone like that around him. Maybe now, with maturity around the corner, he has it, but a few years ago, no. DiCaprio's gang (which included actors such as Lukas Haas, Tobey Maguire and Kevin Connolly, among other models and thugs turned into full-time bodyguards), was known in the 90s for their lapses in the New York night. His nickname says it all: they were the Pussy Posse, the gang of hotties. Rich, famous, handsome (some more than others) and palmeros of everything that Leo wanted. And to make matters worse, DiCaprio and his guys never tipped. Billionaire and stingy. To hate it, right?
He is the typical handsome guy who goes on a flirt
Don Juan 2.0, DiCaprio takes them all out of the street, and does not deny it. I never said my life was boring, he defends himself. But that is not what gives it a bad image. His conquests have an expiration date shorter than those of Clooney himself and his list of exes seems like a haute couture catalog: he only goes out or is seen with models (if they are lingerie, much better) and love breaks them when things threaten to get serious ... or they are approaching 35 years old. Kate Moss, Giselle Bundchen, Bar Refaeli, Erin Heatherton or Toni Garrn, some of his girlfriends, can attest to this. I present myself to women as I am, and I appreciate them for who they are, says the actor himself. Furthermore, he insists on making us believe that he is a romantic man and that his favorite film of the genre is When Harry Met Sally (R. Reiner, 1988). Does money and his fame help you? He doesn't deny it, but he says it's not everything. I know girls respond to a good personality, he says.
Has star tics
Scorsese aside, 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 from history, it is rare that DiCaprio never repeats director in his projects. James Cameron, Ridley Scott or Christopher Nolan, three filmmakers who like to work with the same cast of actors, have not hired him again. Some say it is because of his difficult character on set, in which it is not uncommon for him to star in clashes like the one he had with Quentin Tarantino in the filming of Django Unchained (2012). Jamie Foxx told us: With Quentin he had very big differences, a lot. Once the dialogue was made with the fists, and thank God that the weapons were not really loaded. Everything returned to calm, but I did not understand what happened. There are some whimsical guys who believe themselves the most because they have worked with Scorsese.
He doesn't know how to 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 difficult even to see him laugh on screen. This may change with The Wolf of Wall Street, because, against all odds, it will compete for Best Comedy at the Golden Globes. For Terence Winter, responsible for the Boardwalk Empire series and screenwriter of the film, there are scenes in which DiCaprio and Jonah Hill have nothing to envy of 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. It will be the opportunity to break another myth: if Garbo spoke, now DiCaprio might laugh. And he makes us laugh. Then we will not know whether to love him or hate him even more.
