Leonardo DiCaprio is the actor with whom 2014 begins: 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 for you to decide: 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. It is true that he started as a pre-adolescent actor, but for years no one has doubted his worth as an interpreter. Scorsese remembers when he first heard of 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 go around recommending people. We did not coincide until after Titanic (James Cameron, 1997). Good work, 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 this anymore. I was also a teen idol. And, as a kid, this put me. But I realized that this does not last. It makes me proud to know that I have become the actor I wanted to be, underlines DiCaprio 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 direction. From day one 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 that working with DiCaprio brought his enthusiasm back. 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, concedes DiCaprio. And he is the best when it comes to bringing out what I have inside as an actor.
Carry out risk and commercial projects
DiCaprio has an ace up his sleeve: Appian Way, the production company with which he has been one of the Hollywood players for years. With it 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 produce 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 allowed 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 began to receive material that did not include me as an actor, but that I wanted to see on screen. Do you have my fingerprint? Of course. I work on each of these films to make them come true, I don't just put my name on it. These days, movies like The Aviator or Blood Diamond (Edward Zwick, 2006) or The Wolf of Wall Street, epic dramas or high-budget movies for an adult audience, are impossible to make within the system. Someone has to keep forcing the machine, he confirms.
Your ecological awareness is not a pose
If Scorsese is his guru in cinema, 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 to private jets, DiCaprio organizes millionaire pro-ecological events: Not that I want to brag about it, but this year I put on an auction at Christie's in which I got about 28 million euros for the conservation of the environment, note, proud. A personal cause where tigers, animals with which he identifies, are his right eye. Part of the proceeds was for 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 persecuted 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 yes? Almost as much as sharing the stage with John Kerry in the 2004 presidential campaign: an 11-state tour in which he spoke about the damage the Bush Administration had done 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 doesn't want it all: he wants that and more, a point that pairs 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 brought him to the top. That courage was what 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. Right or wrong: 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 am 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 have not changed nor do I intend to change.
5 REASONS TO HATE HIM
Live under the Oscar obsession
At least he's honest. Not as much as Robert Downey Jr. in Chaplin's time (R. Attenborough, 1992) –Give me an Oscar!, he shouted in full psychotropic high–, but almost. Anyone who says he doesn't want it is lying, Leo says plainly. 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 remembered him in the 14 nominations (and 11 statuettes) that the film won. Leo, instead of facing his absence like a man and joining his teammates, took it like 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 What's Eating Gilbert Grape), but he doesn't forget: The best thing about my last nomination was that I was going as Supporting Actor, one of the first prizes they give out. This way you get rid of the nervousness much sooner, and you have fun the rest of the night, he adds. Scorsese exposes his point of view on the matter: As big as it is, the Academy is still a group. And there are always favourites, 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 out of love with these awards, a bad feeling that was finally broken with The Departed (2007). That said, Scorsese finishes, Leo deserves not one, but many Oscars.
Fame (or his colleagues) confuse him
Recent statements by George Clooney point this out: DiCaprio surrounds himself with an entourage that separates him from reality, which deprives him of seeing how things really are. His encounter 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 really happened made me realize how important it is that someone tells you things by his name, on the pitch and in life. I don't know if Leo has someone like that around. Now, with maturity just around the corner, he might have it, but a few years ago, he didn't. DiCaprio's gang (of which actors such as Lukas Haas, Tobey Maguire or Kevin Connolly were part, among other models and thugs converted into full-time bodyguards), was known in the 90s for its gaps in the New York night. His nickname says it all: they were 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 stingy. To hate him, right?
It is the typical guaperas that goes flirt
Don Juan 2.0, DiCaprio takes them all out on the street, 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 haute couture catalog: he only goes out or is seen with models (if they are lingerie, much better) and love breaks. 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 what they are, says the actor of himself. Moreover, he insists on making us 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 it's not everything. I know that girls respond to a good personality, he says.
He 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 directors 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 on the set of Django Unchained (2012). Jamie Foxx told us: With Quentin he had very big differences, a lot. Once the dialogue was done with fists, and thank God the guns weren't really loaded. Everything returned to calm, but I did not understand what happened. There are some capricious kids who think they are 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's hard for him to even 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 plots of the Boardwalk Empire series and screenwriter of the film, there are scenes in which DiCaprio and Jonah Hill have nothing to envy 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 it may be that DiCaprio laughs. And make us laugh. Then we won't know whether to love him or hate him even more.
