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Premiere magazine - November 1995: What's Eating Leonardo DiCaprio? part three
MOVIELINE magazine recently posed the following quesion in its pages: "With starring roles in
'The Basketball Diaries', 'The Quick And The Dead' - and an opportuninty to play James Dean - will
Leonardo become the next Dean himself?"
So does Leo believe the hype?
"I don't believe any of it", he chides. "I think about acting and the business all the time, that's
the truth, about roles, about whatever people are doing, what to do next, but as far as what people
are saying about me... once in a blue moon I really think about it, you know, I really sit down
and say, 'Hey, is that true?' But it just doesn't register because I read the stuff about me and it's
not who I am. It's a cliché, but it's like they're writing about this guy that I've been made to
be."
Does he like to watch his other self on screen?
"Most of the time all I can look at is the negative stuff," he sighs. "I talked to Michael Caton-Jones
after 'This Boy's Life' and he told me it takes a couple of years for you to actually appreciate the
films you've been in, what you've done and how you hear people say good or bad things about it,
and it takes a couple of years for you to realise for yourself what it really is. I'm probably just at
the point now where I can appreciate the first movie I did. The recent ones I can't even look at."
A man's face suddenly appears from behind a nearby pillar. He shuffles over to our table.
"Be polite," Leo tells the leather-clad man. "Say hello."
Leo looks him up and down.
"Just you and your leather, huh?" he jokes. "Why are you dressed like that?" He stares at the
stranger's head. "And the Harley Davidson biker headband?"
"Hah," snorts the stranger, as he turns to go. "See you later, bro'."
Mr Leather disappears. "One of the Baldwin brothers," he shrugs. "Stephen."
Ah, I exclaim, as recognition dawns. He was the guy at last night's Armani show in the white Nehru
shirt.
Leo rolls his eyes. "Hey," he says quickly. "I didn't say anything at all."
*
Leo was an only child. He told one interviewer he didn't want brothers or sisters. "See," he notes
unhappily. "I read an interview with myself, and I think, 'Did I say that?' You know it's just not
true - I always wanted a little brother, but I was happy being alone. See, maybe I wouldn't have liked
it since I got all the attention being on my own."
Some more facts about Leonardo Wilhelm DiCaprio: his childhood heroes were Poseidon, the Greek god
of the sea, and the cartoon character Submariner; watching 'King Kong' when the gorilla dies still
makes him cry; his favourite film of all time is Tod Browning's 'Freaks'; he loves tropical islands;
he has a scar on his upper right arm from a sting by a Portuguese man-of-war; he originally wanted to
study to be an ocanographer; his favourite musician is Stevie Wonder.
An actress once told me her acting was informed by her dreams.
"I dreamed stuff today," interrupts Leo. "What did I dream today? My most frightening dreams are
always of me being chased, and not being able to find a hiding place, or me getting into a hiding place
and feeling claustrophobia, 'cause I can't get the hell out."
Sounds like a classic anxiety attack to me.
"Like I was with two of my friends," he continues, "and the cops were about to shoot my friend and he's
just walking and the cops are like, 'Turn around', and he wouldn't turn around and put his hands up
and all of a sudden he goes, 'Let's go.' So we both run across the street and all of a sudden
there's a cop chase for an hour an a half. Dreams are crazy. Dreams are the best. I love 'em. I
wish I remembered them more. I have a terrible memory."
What makes him lose sleep at night?
"I'm a very good sleeper," he asserts. I never, ever wake up, unless I know I have something
to do in the morning that I've neglected, then I wake up in fear for a time, but that's very rare,
because I always take care of my business."
*
Leo doesn't have any role models, but Robert De Niro is among the actors he admires. They worked
together on 'This Boy's Life'.
"It was cool, very cool. He was very free when he rehearsed it and very creative, but much more
business-like when he went in there for a take. It was like a machine almost, you know - but great."
They will work together again on 'Marvin's Room', with Leo as a disturbed boy called Hanh who sets
light to his mother's house.
After that DiCaprio stars in 'Romeo And Juliet', a contemporary version of Shakespeare's play set
in a fantasy world with Leo as the romantic lead and 'Little Woman's Claire Danes as his love.
"It's like nothing that I can describe," muses Leo. "It's just us driving around in cars actually,
with guns instead of swords. We've got all this slick gear on like tight pants and Hawaiian shirts
and we're, like, speaking the Bard. My dad dug it, really dug it. He suggested letting me borrow
one of his shirts."
Leo rolls something between his hands.
"It was a wax earplug," he explains, pocketing the remains.
He put them in today over dinner just to find out what it would be like without all the sharp sounds.
"I'm going to carry these forever," he pronounces. "The rest of my life."
Then he decides a very peculiar thing.
"Wow," he says. "I'm going to be blind for the rest of the interview, if you don't mind."
So he screws up his eyes and concentrates.
"I really can't do this," he squirms. "I want to open my eyes."
Does it make him feel insecure?
"It does. This delves into my fears. I wanna look. No, I'm gonna try it. My god."
What would you miss the most if you lost your eyesight?
"What would I most miss looking at? Who knows what I think is the most beautiful thing to
look at. This is really hard. I like castles and buildings and beautiful girls and
coral and fish and animals and... what were you fiddling around with on the table? You're irritating
me."
Well, sorry Leo. I was just moving my tape recorder. "OK, OK. I'm picking up more senses. My god.
I'm hearing, like, things. It's weird. You should try it too, except you have to look at
your notes."
I'm told by the Armani people you picked up some girl fans at the Armani show.
"That had nothing to do with me," he snorts. "It was just a stupid game."
And the lovebite on his neck?
"Who told you about that?" he says, unfazed. "The hickey patrol, right? There's always a hickey
patrol."
But he won't be drawn any further. "I'm dealing with being blind, by the way," he adds. "I'm really
all right."
I suggest he orders ice cream and tries to eat it blind. "I've got good hand-eye co-ordination," he
counters, and piles into his plate of spaghetti to prove the point.
I wonder out loud about his co-ordination on the dance floor.
"I'm pretty dope," he says. "I'm not like professional but I got my own rules, I get pretty raw,
pretty - I don't wanna use a stupid word, I don't wanna say "funky" - I get pretty, you know, I
groove a little. I hate words like 'cosmic'. They piss me off. I hate it when people
describe themselves as that 'cos it's so uncosmic, you know what I mean?"
He pauses, then whispers sardonically. "Oh wow. Another flower child."
So, which of his senses would he last mind losing? "I'd like to be deaf," he says. "Most
of the time I don't care what people are saying."
*
NEW YORK. SEPTEMBER 27, 1995. 12.45 PM. I read Leo an extract from a 'Screen International' review
of 'Total Eclipse': "As portrayed by Leonardo DiCaprio in a potentially career-damaging performance,
Rimbaud is a feral savant, suicidally uninhibited, endlessly annoying."
Silence. Leo: "I can't listen to that kind of shit." It's his day off from filming 'Marvin's Room',
and all he wants to do is take some time of to go to the Hamptons, maybe even to do a bit of yoga.
"So the article said 'career-damaging', huh?" he repeats. "I really don't think it's gonna be
career-damaging and if it is" - he laughs - "then fuck everybody."
The End ***
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