Man in the Iron Mask

Leonardo describes his vision of playing the two characters like this:

"Louis was brought up on the Throne, and was tainted in his view of life and how to treat people.....he turned into a menace because he had no concept of the feelings of others around him. That is how self-indulged he was. He let the people of France starve! The character of Phillipe, (the actual man in the iron mask)is someone who has obviously spent a lot of time alone thinking about the situation he was in. He also has a life of complete mystery because he has no idea who he is or where he came from....." says DiCaprio. "It's about valour and passion and honour, which I don't really see much of in the movies today. It's a complete opposite to the machoism that is going on right now in films. There is a lot of appeal in that for me, and the story is so complex. It has so many twists and turns, you can really get wrapped up in it. When I read the script, I couldn't put it down!"

One of my favourite quotes from the promotional interviews we saw for MITIM, was this one from Gabriel Byrne..

Byrne said "The first day we had to get into costume, [Leo] called me over and asked, "Gabriel, do I look like an idiot?" I said, Leo, every woman in the entire universe is madly in love with you. Why would you look like an idiot?
Leo countered with "Well, I just looked at you and you look like an idiot!"