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Total Film - Januar 2005
Fly Boy
by Tony Horkins
Easing
himself into a chair at LA's Hotel BelAir, Leonardo DiCaprio is looking very little like Howard
Hughes. With his backwards LA baseball cap, washed-out blue Polo sweatshirt, baggy Levi's and scruffy
boy-beard, he bears scant resemblance to the stylish Hollywood playboy/producer/director/pilot he's
captured so perfectly in 'The Aviator, Martin Scorsese's homage to the American legend.
As Scorsese himself recently told 'Vanity Fair', maybe it's to do with DiCaprio's uncanny ability to
"shape change": today, he appears metamorphosised into the Young Hollywood, supermodel-dating Leo
we're more used to seeing straing out from the pages of the pap-rags. Today is also just one day before
his 30th birthday ("I've got another eight hours not to think about it"), and he seems far from
excited about getting another step closer to being a Responsible Adult.
"I'd probably rather still be 20 to tell you the truth," he admits with a drawn-out sigh. "I don't want to
be 30. I'm still a juvenile in some ways and kind of mature in other ways. I feel I've just accumulated
more information and have learned more things." One thing it's clear the reluctant grown-up has learned
is how to spot a good movie when he sees one. Having initially stalled on his post-'Titanic' career -
after a two-year hiatus, 2000's 'The Beach' and 2001's 'Dons' Plum' didn't exactly find him capitalising
on his elevated status - his recent teaming with Spielberg - 'Catch me If You Can' - and then Scorsese
- 'Gangs of New York' - has garnerred him all-important credibility points.
Scorsese likens DiCaprio's process to that of another of his personal favourites, Robert De Niro, and
Leo - already slated to film a third movie with Marty in 2006, 'Infernal Affairs' remake 'The Departed -
feels he's struck director's gold. "The appeal is that I'm working with a master of his craft," he explains.
"I trust nearly everything he says in terms of what to put up on the screen because he's a professor of
cinema. You're working with someone who is at the top, utmost tier of their craft."
And Scorsese's craft has rarely seemed more fluid and energetic than in 'The Aviator', the story of a man
whose life was initially guided by three naked ambitions: to become the richest man in the world; to
become the biggest movie producer in the world; and to become a world-championing pioneer of aviation.
Howard Hughes pretty much became all three, also managing to pick up the tag of 'World's Biggest Playboy'
and, ultimatively, 'World's Strangest Recluse' along the way, too. It's something DiCaprio could
certainly relate to.
"Sure - I feel like hiding all the time," he grins, suddenly looking like he's about to turn 20 after all.
"But I never do because I don't let myself be a victim of this ridiculous thing that is 'being recognised':
There are a lot worse things in the world that people have to deal with. It's not like being famous is a
civil human-rights issue that people should be concerned with. Who cares about us? We're lucky bastards."
After
charmed beginning to his own life, Hughes wasn't quite as lucky a bastard as DiCaprio's been. Born on Texas
and into money in 1905 - his father invented a diamond thrill-bit that revolutionised the way oil
prospectors operated - young Howard's triumvirate of ambitions began in earnest at 18 when he inherited
the business after his father's dead.
Fossil fuel was never Hughes' thing, so he headed for Hollywood; while his company continued to pump oil,
he began pumping the profits into movies. And not with a little success. He made a star of Jean Harlow,
smashed box-office records with prototype blockbuster 'Hell's Angels' (1930), had two films nominated
for Oscars ('The Racket' in 1928 and 'The Front Page' in 1931), and managed to get the censors all hot
and bothered when he invented a cantilevered push-up bra for the already generously endowed Jean Russell
in 'The Outlaw' (1941).
Ultimately, however, despite the profile and access to the period's hottest Hollywood totty - he famously
dated Katherine Hepburn, Ava Gardner and Jane Russell - the land of make-believe was not enough for Hughes.
He left movies behind to indulge his other passion: aviation.
As driven to fly as he was to make films, his flying successes were enormous. The munificent mogul set
many world records, including, at seven hours, the fastest time travelled between Los Angeles and New York.
He also built (out of wood!) what is still the world's largest aircraft, the 'Sproose Goose' - 50 percent
longer than a Boein 747. And he flew his own H-1 airplane a record-breaking 352mph. Along the way, he
nearly killed himself piloting a test flight - it took nine months in hospital to recover from the
death-defying injuries - and bought and ran passenger airline TWA.
"I think he was someone who took things to extremes," understates Dicaprio, whose obsessive research into
his character astonished both Scorsese and screenwriter John Logan. "I think he literally had no moral
high-ground, no parental figures as a young man... And all the money in the world. He made a laundry list
of things he wanted to do. He had nobody to tell him what he was doing wrong, and I think he sacrficed
his own happiness ultimately in order to achieve these dreams."
Despite the realisation of many of his dreams, Hughes is now sadly remembered for the last 20 years of
his life, when he lost his battle with hypochondria, germophobia and obsessive-compulsive disorder to
become a urine-bottling, toenail-growing, fully-fledged weirdo hiding out in a hotel room in Las Vegas.
By the time he died in 1976, aged 70, his appearance was so drastically changed -and he's been seen by
so few people for so long - that the Treasury Department had to use fingerprints to identify his
drug-addicted body.
Ultimately, his is a lifetime of stories that Scorsese could have chosen to dedicate a trilogy of films:
'The Hollywood Years', 'The Aviation Years' and 'The Recluse Years'. Instead, 'The Aviator' covers the
period between 1928 and 1948, introducing the viewer to the young, energetic producer as he struggles with
spiralling budgets and "not enough clouds" on the set of his World War One epic 'Hell's Angels'. It
finishes with his very public battle with congress - Hughes spent a lifetime battling authority figures
over everything from censorship to taxes - as he attempts to dismantle the government-mandated monopoly
held by Pan Am over international travel routes.
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* "I think the fact
it focused on Howard as a younger man is the reason the movie got made," DiCaprio suggests with a frown.
"It follows all the successes that he had in his life. It's not very cinematic to see a guy locked in a
hotel room sneezing and making business deals." Scripter John Logan agrees: "For me aviation was
the spine. I believe it was the entity in Howard's crowded life he cared about the most."
It wasn't, however, DiCaprio's first understanding of who Howard Hughes was. Like many, he too thought
of him as "this old man with Kleenex boxes on his feet and long hair". Until, that is, he read Peter
Harry Brown's 1996 biography, 'Howard Hughes: The Untold Story'. "It was then I realised he was a real
pioneer of American history as far as aviation is concerned; how he was the first independent producer
to make a $4-million picture; and how he made one of the most sexually explicit movies in 'The Outlaw'
and one of the most violent films ever with the original 'Scarface'. I learnd how he challenged the
censor boards and how he had really hardcore obsessive-compulsive disorder; and how he was one of the
biggst Casanova womanizers of the last century." He pauses to take stock, resting back in his seat.
"That's when I knew he was a multi-dimensional, fascinating character that would be exciting to play."
Convinced of the validity and depth of the role, DiCaprio set about meticulously exploring it, relying
enormously on TV footage covering the senate hearings of Hughes' battle with Pan Am. "I literally got
to watch his movements and see how he really was in a public form," he says. "But my biggest worry
was how the germophobe stuff would work. That took a lot of research and a lot of effort to really
understand what it is that makes you afraid of, say, shaking hands. I didn't understand what the heck
that was, so I worked with a doctor and a couple of people who had OCD to try and really give an accurate depiction."
DiCaprio wasn't the only actor that had to bury themselves deep into the nuances of a non-fictional character.
Cate Blanchett did so as well when she took the role of Hollywood legend Katherine Hepburn. Trawling
her way through many of the late actress' films and appearances, she struck gold when she stumbled upon a
television interview she'd done in 1974 with US TV host Dick Cavett.
"She was a mouch older woman by then," Blanchett tells 'Total Film', "and hearing her speak rather than
speak someone else's lines... I know very well the difference between one's performance persona and who
one actually is. It's often miles apart, so I was trying to walk that line and work very closely on her
vocal mannerisms."
Kate Beckinsale (Ava Gardner) had a tastier way of digging into her character. "I did it with chocolate,"
she confesses, flashing a wicked smile. "I'm not really the right shape for Ava Gardner in real life so
I gained a stone-and-a-half. I was actually quite cheered about how much chocolate it took to gain it.
Now, though, I couldn't look at a peanut M&M; again if you paid me. Which is a miracle. But I managed
to gain weight on my face and my boobs and my bum. On set it was fine, but I'd go home and feel like a fat bastard."
For all the film's stars, the making of 'The Aviator' was almost as exciting a journey as one of Hughes'
record-breaking flights. "I found the drive of the film really fascinating," says Blanchett. "Marty's
really captured that fast-talking witty energy that the films of the '30s and '40s had." Beckinsale,
meanwhile, came at the movie from much the same angle as DiCaprio. "Before making the film, I didn't
realise how much Howard Hughes had achieved," she says. "I knew him much more for being a nutter. Which is
really sad because if someone's got that kind of brilliance, there's often a flip-side that goes with it.
And it's a shame when people know a bit more about the flip-side than about what you actually did."
It's clear
that 'The Aviator' could go some way to diminish the worldview of Hughes as "Loony Recluse Stabbed To
Death By His Own Toenails" and help replace it with a more fitting epitaph. And both Beckinsale and
Blanchett - along with No Doubt's Gwen Stefani, who features in her first ever movie role as Jean
Harlowe - agree that it's in no small way due to the generosity and skills of their director.
"Scosese couldn't have made me feel more comfortable - like I was meant to be there." admits Stefani.
"He was so passionate and I love seeing people like that; he knew everything about Howard Hughes and
the time period." - "He's incredibly detailed and a perfectionist and very sensitive aurally and
visually," adds Blanchett. "If something's offending him visually, it distracts him and he can't concentrate.
And it's the same if there's a noise at the other end of the studio... It's like he's got the hearing
of a dog. He's really sensitised to performance and can pick things up maybe a lot of others would miss.
At the same time, he's a very energetic man and so interested in the performance energy.
It was fascinating to work with him."
The man that perhaps knows him best, however, puts it more succinctly. "He's a movie nerd," laughs DiCaprio.
"He related everything in his life to movies. But it's great to be around somebody who loves what they
do that much. He obsesses about films. He doesn't go for walks in the park when he has a couple of
hours off, he goes into his screening room and watches another movie he's seen 30 times already. The
man's amazing."
"Amazing" is a recurring word bandied about by those closest to the director, but not, unfortunately,
by those in the Academy. "Oscar" and "Scorsese" are two words still not seen in the same sentence,
despite classics like 'Goodfellas', 'Raging Bull', 'Taxi Driver' and 'Mean Streets' making his CV
the envy of every other working director. Which leads to the inevitable question: could 'The
Aviator' change things? "I really would love for Mr Scorsese to get an Oscar, to tell you the truth,"
says DiCaprio. "Because I think his contributions to the cinema are unprecedented and the fact that
he hasn't won yet is like a cruel practical joke."
Mind you, the nearly-30 actor wouldn't be averse to nabbing a golden baldie of his own. Told that
Cate Blanchett has confided to 'Total Film' that he deserves the accolade ("There's a relentlessness to
him - he's prepared to keep going and going and going until he feels he's got it right"), he shuffles
in his chair. "Of course it would be nice," he admits. "Any actor that says they wouldn't want that is...
Well, why should they be in the business if they wouldn't like to have somebody say, 'You did a
worthy enough performance'? Of course they would like that."
Now that would be a birthday present worth celebrating....
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