By Tim Nasson
Beverly Hills – It’s been seven years since Leonardo DiCaprio captured the hearts and eyes of the world with his role in Titanic. That was also the year he was named one of the the 50 Most Beautiful People in the World, by People Magazine.
Not only did the six foot-one inch DiCaprio become the world’s most recognizable movie star, (“People still call me ‘that kid’ from Titanic, he says), the movie became the highest grossing ever and tied for the most Academy Award nominations handed out to any film, fourteen, going on to win eleven, including Best Picture and Director.
However, DiCaprio’s name was noticeably absent from the list of Best Actor nominees for Titanic. Even Gloria Stewart, then 87, (and, yes, she is still alive), was nominated for Best Supporting Actress for her role as Old Rose (Kate Winslet was nominated for Best Actress for playing Young Rose).
“I did stay away from the Academy Awards that year,” recalls DiCaprio, recently, in a suite at The Four Seasons Beverly Wilshire. “I was invited, but thought if I had went, with the way the movie was so popular at the time, me being ‘king of the world,'” he laughs, “that I would have taken away from the accolades the film deserved and did ultimately get. Am I mad that I was not nominated? Well, anyone who says that they wouldn’t want a nomination would be lying, but I wasn’t really mad. That’s a strong word. It’s just the way the game is played. There are only five slots each year and there were, so my peers thought, five better performances that year. So who am I to take away that honor from anyone?”
DiCaprio was nominated for an Oscar, at the ripe young age of nineteen, for his role in What’s Eating Gilbert Grape? his second starring role in a motion picture. (His first, opposite Robert DeNiro, in This Boy’s Life.)
However, DiCaprio has been in only five movies since Titanic. Two big bombs, The Man In the Iron Mask and The Beach, a Stephen Spielberg movie, Catch Me if You Can, and two Martin Scorsese films, Gangs of New York, and his most recent, the soon-to-be released The Aviator in which he portrays the late billionaire, triple threat – Hollywood icon/ladies man, aeronautics pioneer and obsessive compulsive – Howard Hughes.
“Some people thought I was too young to tackle Howard Hughes,” admits DiCaprio, who is only thirty – (he portrays Hughes well into his forties). “But ever since Titanic I have played extremely different characters and I knew that I could nail Howard. And thankfully, Martin [Scorsese] gave me the chance to prove it. As an actor, you’re constantly searching for that ‘great character’ and being a history buff, I came across a book about Howard Hughes and he was set up as the most multi-dimensional character I had ever come across. I brought the book to Michael Mann who was initially going to direct the film and came up with the concept of doing Howard Hughes’s younger years. He lived to be over seventy but the film only explores his life though his mid-forties. You could do ten different movies about Howard Hughes. He was the first American billionaire but was somehow unable to find any sense of peace and happiness. It’s that great see-saw act in the movie that goes on.”
DiCaprio’s performance in The Aviator is Oscar worthy. His failure to get nominated for the title role would be a travesty. And Martin Scorsese has not directed this well since Goodfellas.
“On one side,” continues DiCaprio, “Hughes is having all the successes in the world and on the other side the tiny microbes and germs are that things that are taking him down, the things you can’t see, because he is Obsessive Compulsive and a Germaphobe. Perhaps if Prozac or its like were available fifty years ago, Howard would have been a much different and happier man.”
About the only things DiCaprio has in common with Hughes are the fame and fortune. “Howard took things farther than I could ever imagine. He was such an obsessed human being. But to a degree, when it comes to getting a movie perfect, and he directed the most expensive movie of all time, when adjusted for inflation, [‘Hell’s Angels], expensive because when it was finished shooting he reshot the whole movie again with sound after he realized that silent films were becoming obsolete. But,” adds DiCaprio, “I relish my privacy. I am not holed up in a hotel, naked and crazy, as he was for more than half of his life, but I do understand what it’s like to want to be alone. To have privacy.”
Martin Scorsese and Leonardo DiCaprio have a special working relationship. “Martin and I share the same taste in many thing. We both wanted to do Alexander but I am not disappointed that we opted for The Aviator. Both men, Alexander and Hughes, are men with similar dynamics. Men that keep on reaching for their ultimate goal and stop at nothing until they achieve that. It just happened that The Aviator script and project was way further advanced in the development stage than the script that landed in our lap for Alexander and we wanted to do another movie together, immediately. We then had the intention of doing them both but, you don’t get everything you want all the time,” he says, smiling. “I did get to play gay once, and I showed more than Colin Farrell shows in Alexander, though,” he jokes, about his role in Total Eclipse.
For any who are curious, there are more than a couple of scenes in The Aviator where DiCaprio is buck naked. “But it’s PG-13, this time,” he jokes. “You only get to see my ass.”
Few may know that DiCaprio turned down the role of Dirk Diggler in Boogie Nights, which went to Mark Wahlberg.
“You know?” asks DiCaprio, rhetorically. “I actually wish I had taken that role instead of Titanic. I think I might have gotten more respect from Hollywood and less harassed by teenage and preteen girls all over the world for the past few years. But I guess that is the Howard Hughes side of me talking. I love movies and I love being in them but far more satisfying than being recognized is being remembered and I think everyone will remember the movie Titanic forever.”
Leonardo, you may remember, got his first big break on TV’s “Growing Pains” in the mid-80s, playing homeless kid Luke. But even before that, at age five, he made his television debut on “Romper Room.”
“Hahaha,” chuckles DiCaprio, when I remind him of that day. “I almost got thrown out of the studio because I was misbehaving so badly but I hardly remember it. My mother is the one who, unfortunately, won’t forget that brilliant moment in my career.”
From “Romper Room” to $20 million per picture, DiCaprio, half Italian and half German, growing up in Los Angeles, has come a long, long way.
“I love this business,” he says. “I really, really love it and want to be around in it until I die.
DiCaprio recently won a Golden Globe for Best Actor Drama for his role in The Aviator. Is Oscar next? Watch the 77th Annual Academy Awards, Sunday, February 27th on ABC to find out.
Leonardo DiCaprio Interview with Tim Nasson for The Aviator.
