Any director in Hollywood would love to cast Leonardo DiCaprio as the leading star of their film. The actor is dedicated to the craft, chooses brilliant scripts, and has global recognition. Throughout his career, the actor has been very picky in terms of the films he chooses to be a part of.
The actor had a multi-film collaboration with Martin Scorsese and gave an Oscar-winning performance under Alejandro G Innaritu in The Revenant. Very rarely does he disappoint a director that has entrusted him to portray the character they have created. However, he once came close to jeopardizing director Quentin Tarantino’s love letter to Los Angeles.
Leonardo DiCaprio: The Director’s Actor
Leonardo DiCaprio has caught the audience’s attention ever since his first major feature film role as a child in the Robert DeNiro starrer This Boy’s Life. He garnered universal acclaim and his first Oscar nomination for his role in What’s Eating Gilbert Grape. He did a wonderful mix of blockbusters like Titanic and indie dramas like The Beach.
DiCaprio formed a long working relationship with ace director Martin Scorsese. After working with the director for the first time in Gangs of New York, DiCaprio appeared in four more films with him, and will soon be collaborating for the sixth time on the upcoming Killers of the Flower Moon.
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Leonardo DiCaprio has also collaborated with ace director Quentin Tarantino twice. The first time, he appeared as the primary antagonist in Tarantino’s revisionist Western Django Unchained. The Jaimie Foxx starrer featured DiCaprio as a slave owner and Mandingo fighting aficionado Calvin Candie. The actor was lauded for his unhinged performance as Candie.
DiCaprio collaborated with Tarantino again, this time as the leading star in the director’s penultimate film Once Upon A Time In Hollywood. His role as fading TV star Rick Dalton earned him an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor. While Tarantino usually lets actors do their thing, he was initially skeptical about a particular decision taken by DiCaprio.
Leonardo DiCaprio’s Improvisation Changed Quentin Tarantino’s Mind
Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon A Time In Hollywood is a revisionist account of the Golden Age of Hollywood and is set on the day of the Charles Manson murders. It features Leonardo DiCaprio and Brad Pitt as actor Rick Dalton and stunt double Cliff Booth respectively. They play fictional characters while Margot Robbie plays the legendary Sharon Tate.
When DiCaprio was approached by Tarantino for the role of Rick Dalton, the actor is said to have immediately thought about ways to play the characters. The actor asked Tarantino for a lot of details regarding the character as he was a fading superstar at the time when TV was at its peak. DiCaprio said,
“I told him it was great and that I loved what he did. And I was already on track of thinking, OK, what are we going to do with Rick Dalton? Because in the original draft, there were some things that I needed to understand about who he was. He was this template for the industry at the time, and so much of his character had to exist within the context of watching television, or watching movies, or watching him act.”
During filming, Leonardo DiCaprio suggested one small change. The scene was that of Rick Dalton filming for a TV pilot named Lancer. Tarantino wanted to shoot the scene like a typical Western but DiCaprio suggested that he mess up lines within the scene. Regarding the incident, Tarantino said,
“I just wanted to do my Lancer scene, a way to do this Western through the back door. He said, ‘I know I’m kind of f****** up your scene, but I think that would be good for the character.’ I saw it as him ruining my fun, basically, but I say, ‘Fine. I’ll write a version, and we’ll do the Lancer scene straight, and with the f*** **, knowing that in the editing room, I was going to do what I wanted to.”
While the director allowed DiCaprio to do the scene his way and figured he would cut on the editing floor, Tarantino revealed that the actor’s decision was integral to the film. He let the scene remain the way DiCaprio improvised it. The scene has since been regarded as one of the finest in the actor’s career.
Source: The Things
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