“Leo knows I feel that way”: why James Cameron called Leonardo DiCaprio a spoiled punk
Even though James Cameron‘s public perception is inevitably tied to the Avatar franchise right now, to which he is currently dedicating almost all of this time, the early half of his career showed that he was willing to take on diverse challenges. Not just that, he also excelled on almost every project in record-breaking ways, be it the sci-fi world of Terminator or the romantic drama of Titanic.
Following the widely beloved Terminator 2 and True Lies, nobody really expected Cameron to pivot to a non-action project, but he did it in spectacular style with Titanic. Probably the definitive Hollywood spectacle celebrating a doomed romance for an entire generation, the movie knew exactly which heartstrings to pull in order to resonate with audiences all around the world.
Starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet as star-crossed lovers who are not only separated by the enormous gulf between their respective socioeconomic strata but also by the historic impending disaster, Titanic still remains among the five highest-grossing movies ever made even after all these years. In addition, it managed to pick up 11 Academy Awards from a total of 14 nominations at the Oscars that year.
It cannot be denied that a major part of Titanic’s success was DiCaprio’s moving performance, but one particular thing actually pissed Cameron off during the awards season. That was the actor’s decision to avoid the Oscars ceremony because he did not feel like it represented him, something which might have been linked to him not getting a ‘Best Actor’ nomination.
Cameron explained: “I felt that it was kind of a snub, not of the film per se but of all the other people who did care and had sweated blood for the movie. So I kept calling and saying, ‘You gotta go for the team – and, frankly, you have to go for yourself because the consequences of not going will be that you’re gonna look like a spoiled punk.’ So he didn’t go, and he looked like a spoiled punk.”
The filmmaker added: “Leo knows I feel that way, so I’m not saying anything out of school. He agonised over it – but there was something about it that wasn’t him. That was the message I got on my machine, like, the day before: ‘It just ain’t me, bro.’ Apparently, getting $4million to do a juice ad that airs only in Japan is him; going to the Oscars is not.”
Interestingly, even though he told Cameron that he wasn’t interested in the Oscars at the time, the pursuit of the ‘Best Actor’ trophy has undoubtedly defined the latter half of his career. After repeated missed chances, he finally achieved it with The Revenant, and the look on DiCaprio’s face when he went up on stage to get that prize definitely did not reflect, “It just ain’t me, bro”.
