“It was such a great experience”: the inspirational actor who thrilled Leonardo DiCaprio
Having effortlessly navigated the often dangerous journey from child stardom to sustained success and then remained at the top of his game for the last 30 years, Leonardo DiCaprio is now in a position where future generations of actors look to him as a source of guidance and inspiration.
It’s part of the deal that comes with being a generational talent, one who eschewed the pretty boy roles he was no doubt being inundated with in the immediate post-Titanic years, with DiCaprio instead focusing his performative aspirations on being the best he could possibly be.
There aren’t many A-list megastars to have actively shunned the franchise business and yet maintained a constant degree of fame and fortune over such a long period of time, but he’s among that very small number. The closest thing he’s ever come to headlining a blockbuster was Christopher Nolan’s Inception, and it earned a ‘Best Picture’ nomination at the Academy Awards.
That selectivity has been a key part in not only DiCaprio’s evolution but also his longevity, and he’s been fortunate enough to work with some truly legendary names along the way. Ongoing muse Martin Scorsese, the aforementioned Nolan, Steven Spielberg, Johnny Depp, Robert De Niro, James Cameron, Tom Hanks, and Ridley Scott are just a few of them, and they’ve all made their own mark.
It may have been River Phoenix that DiCaprio looked up to when he was first beginning to make waves in adult-orientated roles in the early 1990s, but a decade later when he was going out of his way to hone his craft and begin establishing himself as a formidable dramatic talent, coming into contact with the best of the best was always going to be an eye-opener.
“Being able to work with Daniel Day-Lewis, who’s such an inspiration to so many young actors and who is so committed to his roles and characters was a huge thrill for me,” DiCaprio said to the BBC following a Gangs of New York-sized crash course in his peer’s immersive techniques. “It was such a great experience working with him, you know.”
Scorsese’s epic crime saga doesn’t feature DiCaprio on particularly glittering form, but Day-Lewis was as astonishing as ever. As he tended to do, the three-time Oscar winner became Bill ‘The Butcher’ Cutting and stayed in character for the duration of the shoot, and no offence intended to his opposite number, but he chewed up DiCaprio’s Amsterdam Vallon and spat him out every time they shared a scene together.
There’s no shame in that when there aren’t many actors in cinema history to have been able to hold a candle to Day-Lewis, but that combination of working under Scorsese’s direction for the first time and coming face-to-face with an era-defining thespian at the peak of their powers became the catalyst for DiCaprio’s reinvention from fresh-faced star into supremely gifted actor.
