Jonah Hill’s favourite scene of all time was a prank played on Leonardo DiCaprio
Martin Scorsese’s brilliant 2013 film The Wolf of Wall Street saw one of the best, and initially most unlikely, charismatic on-screen relationships in contemporary cinema. The movie starred Leonard DiCaprio as criminal stockbroker Jordan Belfort, while Jonah Hill played his business partner and friend Donnie Azoff.
The chemistry between the two was a thing to marvel at, and Hill used all his comedic experience to deliver one of his most impressive performances, likely bringing out the best in DiCaprio too. However, perhaps there was also an element of different acting styles, with DiCaprio’s intense method of acting at odds with Hill’s more laid-back style. Interestingly, this dichotomy led to one of Hill’s favourite ever movie scenes. In a montage of The Wall of Wall Street interviews on Instagram, Hill explained that DiCaprio’s insistence on reality caused a bit of a ruckus between the two actors. “Any time you do any sort of physical scene with Leonardo DiCaprio, he doesn’t understand that it’s acting, and he beats the living crap out of you for six months,” Hill said, drawing reference to the lengths that DiCaprio goes to in order to create a layer of believability in his roles.
Hill then noted that DiCaprio went as far as to physically punch Hill in the face. “As you can see in the lude fight or any other scene, I get punched in the face, I got punched in the face for real,” he said. However, Hill then admitted that he felt like he had to “get [DiCaprio] back”.
Given DiCaprio’s physique, Hill felt that he couldn’t take him on in a fistfight, so had to employ tactics of intelligence to get back at him. He said: “since I can’t physically beat him up back because he’s bigger than me, I had to use my brain to beat him up.”
The Wolf of Wall Street features a brilliant scene in which Belfort and Azoff tuck into a meal of sushi, and it offered Hill a chance for revenge. “There was a scene, which is my favourite scene between us – it’s my favourite scene I’ve ever shot in a movie, actually,” he said. “And in the sushi scene, the line was written as…”
DiCaprio then jumped in to briefly explain how the scene was meant to go down. He said, “I was supposed to say, ‘Do you want that last piece of yellowtail’.” Hill continued, “And I was supposed to say, ‘Yes,’ and then eat it.”
The tension was obviously building, and Hill saw his opportunity. He went on: “And the first take, he goes, ‘Take that last piece of yellowtail,’ and I go, ‘It’s all yours.’ And then so he had to eat it. So he had to match that take for the rest of the night. By the end of the night, he was on the floor throwing up into a waste bin.”
Thankfully, for Hill, he took his revenge on DiCaprio’s over-the-top approach to physicality in film. “Everyone was like, ‘Leo, are you OK? Are you Ok?’ And the only two people on the floor laughing hysterically were myself and Martin Scorsese,” Hill said. “It was one of the better moments of the whole shoot. Use your brain; it’s better than your muscles.”
