The actors Christopher Nolan says have a “timeless quality”
Stardom can often be fleeting in an industry that moves as fast and evolves as rapidly as cinema, but Christopher Nolan knows a timeless talent when he sees one.
As well as being one of the most respected, acclaimed, and popular filmmakers of the modern era, he’s also had the privilege of working with many of the biggest names Hollywood has at its disposal, while he even anointed one of them as his lucky charm after casting Michael Caine in eight of his movies.
Beyond that, Nolan has collaborated with Al Pacino, Robin Williams, Christian Bale, Morgan Freeman, Hugh Jackman, Gary Oldman, David Bowie, Leonardo DiCaprio, Matt Damon, Matthew McConaughey, Kenneth Branagh, and Robert Downey Jr., all of whom have enjoyed decades-long careers boasting plenty in the way of success and acclaim.
With that in mind, the Oppenheimer director knows what he’s talking about when he praised DiCaprio for having “a timeless quality about him” to Rolling Stone, saying that “he’s going to be a movie star forever” along the same lines as “a Jack Nicholson or an Al Pacino”.
Having already been a regular fixture on-screen for 30 years and one of the most famous names in the business for more than 25, it’s an opinion on DiCaprio that not many would disagree with. Not only that, but longevity similar to that enjoyed by Nicholson or Pacino is virtually guaranteed unless he decides to follow the former into retirement at any point in the future.
It would have been easy for DiCaprio to capitalise on his fame, recognition, and status to coast through on a string of easy paydays and big budget blockbusters, but it’s never been something he’s shown any interest in. Some of his most recent credits have been undeniably expensive – with Martin Scorsese regularly securing hundreds of millions of dollars in budgetary costs – but it’s hardly comparable to an action movie or a comic book adaptation.
Nolan is in a similar boat as Scorsese given his love of expensively-assembled features that couldn’t be made by anyone else, making him the ideal conduit for the most action-heavy role of DiCaprio’s career in Inception. Dom Cobb is still a character haunted by his past, though, with the director outlining how “Leo wants to explore the truth of a character at whatever cost to his image”.
Oxymoronically, in Nolan’s eyes it’s “the opposite of what you’d expect from a movie star”, but he still believes it’s a title Inception‘s leading man will hold in perpetuity. Nicholson and Pacino maintained their superstardom for almost half a century and have indeed secured timeless status, but with DiCaprio already more than halfway there before even turning 50 years old, he’s already well on the way.
