Leonardo DiCaprio names Hollywood’s greatest double act: “The golden relationship of cinema”
It’s a tall order trying to determine which double-act deserves to be remembered as the greatest in cinema history, but Leonardo DiCaprio didn’t have to think twice about it.
Ever since the advent of the moving image, dynamic duos have been an integral part of the movie business. Regardless of it being two actors, a star and director, a writer partnership, or any other combination of creative talents, there’s no shortage of pairings who’ve left behind a seismic footprint.
Whether it’s John Ford and John Wayne, Laurel and Hardy, Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, Akira Kurosawa and Toshiro Mifune, Werner Herzog and Klaus Kinski, Paul Newman and Robert Redford, or Quentin Tarantino and Samuel L Jackson, great things have frequently come in pairs.
Even today, modern Hollywood has Ryan Coogler and Michael B Jordan, Wes Anderson and Bill Murray, and Yorgos Lanthimos and Emma Stone to carry on the proud tradition, but the less said about Adam Sandler and any of his frequent Happy Madison cohorts, the better, even if they technically still count.
While you could certainly accuse DiCaprio of being biased, you can’t necessarily say that he’s wrong when he declared Martin Scorsese and Robert De Niro to be at the top of that particular pile, even if he’s spent the last two and a half decades doing a stellar job of replacing the latter as the former’s go-to muse.
“He is my favourite actor of all time,” the Academy Award winner told SAG-AFTRA. “That relationship with him and Scorsese just influenced every one of my friends in the industry that I’ve met through the years. That is sort of the golden relationship of cinema to me. I mean, it just gets no better than that run of films that they did together.”
To be fair, it was a stellar run, possibly even the greatest ever between a filmmaker and performer. Eight collaborations in 22 years is one thing, but when those collaborations are Mean Streets, Taxi Driver, New York, New York, Raging Bull, The King of Comedy, Goodfellas, Cape Fear, and Casino, that’s something else entirely.
“I just… I can’t even talk about it,” DiCaprio marvelled. “It’s that mind-blowing.” Again, he’s got a point, and as much as his six-picture run with Scorsese has been showered in critical, commercial, and awards season praise, it still isn’t a patch on what he accomplished with De Niro. Not that there’s any reason to be ashamed about it, when few pairings have ever enjoyed such a distinguished stretch.
Sure, it’s the most obvious answer you would have expected him to give based on his close relationship with both, but even from a completely objective standpoint, Scorsese and De Niro are right up there.
