Leonardo DiCaprio and Robert DeNiro have been Martin Scorsese’s favorite muses over the years. The two celebrities have been constant presences in many of the veteran director’s films and most recently shared screen space together in 2023’s Killers of the Flower Moon.
The film opened at the Cannes Film Festival to a stupendous ovation and is already staking its claim to be one of the year’s big winners. While Scorsese is known to bring out the best in his actors, he faced a challenge in this film when his two leads DiCaprio and DeNiro did not see eye to eye on their contrasting acting methods.
Leonardo DiCaprio’s Improvisations Did Not Impress Robert DeNiro
Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon saw the director’s favorite actors Leonardo DiCaprio and Robert DeNiro share screen space. The film set in the 1920s, follows the hardships of the members of the Osage Native American tribe of Osage County, Oklahoma, who are murdered after oil is found on their land, leading the FBI on an intense investigation.
While DeNiro and DiCaprio have been hailed for their powerful performances in the film, it was not always smooth sailing for the two actors to work together. Both Oscar winners are known to have very different approaches to acting, with DiCaprio being famous for his improvisations on set.
This process did not find favor with either Scorsese or DeNiro who both felt that the Titanic star would do well to curb his ad-libbing and stick with the script on occasion. Speaking to The Wall Street Journal, The Departed director revealed the constant clashes between DiCaprio and the Taxi Driver actor about how to create a particular scene in the film.
“Then Bob didn’t want to talk. Every now and then, Bob and I would look at each other and roll our eyes a little bit. And we’d tell [Leo], ‘You don’t need that dialogue.’”
It looks like the two stars managed to work out their creative differences with Scorsese being the mediator, going by the resounding reception that Killers of the Flower Moon in the weekend of its release on October 20th, 2023.
Leonardo DiCaprio Made Martin Scorsese Rewrite Killers Of The Flower Moon Script
Martin Scorsese’s latest film Killers of the Flower Moon is based on David Grann’s 2017 book of the same name. The veteran director revealed that he and writer Eric Roth spent two years working on the film script. But his work had to endure a complete rehaul when his lead actor and one of his favorite muses Leonardo DiCaprio insisted that the script needed to be rewritten completely.
The film which follows the horrors inflicted on the Native American Tribe of Osage County, was originally written from the angle of the FBI agents who investigate a brutal crime. DiCaprio, who is known to have an excellent working equation with Scorsese, did not agree with the emphasis being taken away from the main issue of the film. In an interview with The Irish Times, Scorsese revealed the Shutter Island star’s inputs and said,
“After two years of working on the script, Leo came to me and asked, ‘Where is the heart of this story?’ I had had meetings and dinners with the Osage, and I thought, ‘Well, there’s the story.’ The real story, we felt, was not necessarily coming from the outside, with the bureau, but rather from the inside, from Oklahoma.”
Thanks to DiCaprio’s timely suggestions, the Oscar-winning director reworked the story completely to give the Native American Tribes prominence and tell their heartbreaking story from their point of view.
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