The director Leonardo DiCaprio has waited 35 years to work with: “I did my best”
Even some of the biggest stars in Hollywood, the kind you’d expect to be able to get whatever they want, have had to wait years to work with their dream filmmaker, with some still waiting around for the glorious day.
When Leonardo DiCaprio was just 18, he almost had his chance to work with his deeply admired hero, Michael Mann, but it never worked out, and now, almost 35 years later, they’re planning a sequel to Mann’s beloved Al Pacino and Robert De Niro vehicle Heat, and it’s looking like the actor is about to see his dream come true.
The pair were set to work with each other on a biopic of James Dean, but DiCaprio had yet to do big movies like Titanic and Romeo + Juliet, and while he’d impressed with roles in the likes of What’s Eating Gilbert Grape, he was just too young for the part of the late actor.
Dean might have only been 24 when he died, but DiCaprio was still a fresh-faced teenager at this point, so the actor had to put his desire to work with Mann on the sidelines for the time.
DiCaprio recalled meeting him when he was young, adding, “When we did the James Dean screen test, I remember it was at Warner Bros. They put a top hat on me. I did my best. I think we had two days to shoot a screen test. I was probably just a little too young at that time.”
He added, “What I love about Michael Mann as an artist and as a person, and I’ve heard this from other actors along the way, is that he is extraordinary to work with, because there’s nothing that he hasn’t thought of. He’s thought of every single nuance and detail of the character, of the world, and he’s going to have an answer for any questions you might have.”
The actor also remembered how he and Mann were primed to develop 2004’s The Aviator together, the movie based on a book about Howard Hughes, which DiCaprio was really passionate about and would even carry it around in his backpack for ten years, trying to understand every nuance of the man. Regardless of the level of involvement and the actor having the starring role, the plan fell through when Mann left and was replaced by Martin Scorsese.
“I had a huge passion to play him. Michael developed that entire screenplay with John Logan, and it was just masterful. He had just done Ali, and after doing one major biopic, he didn’t want to do another, he said, ‘It’s yours, kid’.”
So, all these years later, the pair are finally doing something together in the form of Heat 2, based on the book Mann wrote as a sequel to his own film, and DiCaprio is naturally excited, gushing about how Mann is a brilliant mind who thinks through everything, leaving no stone unturned in his ventures. It seems like it’ll be a while yet before Heat 2 emerges, but finally, DiCaprio will be able to say that Mann has directed him on screen and live his lifelong desire.
