Leonardo DiCaprio names the most “multi-dimensional” character of his career
The smartest thing Leonardo DiCaprio ever did with his career was refuse to capitalise on the record-breaking success of Titanic, which could have easily seen him pigeonholed as a heartthrob and movie star who placed their focus squarely on the roles that stood to find the most success.
That’s not to say he’s gone on to appear in a string of flops by any stretch, with the actor’s selective nature ensuring that almost every one of his credits ends up being a hit. He’s avoided franchises, shunned sequels, and the closest he’s ever gotten to being a conventional action hero came in Christopher Nolan’s Inception, all while establishing himself as one of the most consistent and gifted names in the business.
Of course, he was already an Academy Award-nominated performer before he’d even boarded the titular vessel in James Cameron’s box office behemoth, but DiCaprio has always been playing the long game. He even found himself a muse along the way after Gangs of New York served as the catalyst for a long and fruitful creative partnership with Martin Scorsese.
Re-teaming shortly afterwards, DiCaprio was signed on to play Howard Hughes in The Aviator long before Scorsese even came aboard, with Michael Mann initially attached to direct. Hollywood had spent years trying to get a biopic off the ground, with the dynamic duo beating Christopher Nolan and Jim Carrey to the punch to get theirs into production.
Having been a major producer, studio owner, aerospace engineer, aircraft company founder, record-setting aviator, pilot, philanthropist, richest man on the planet, business mogul with hotels and casinos in Las Vegas, and an OCD-afflicted eccentric recluse at various points during his life, it would be an understatement to say there was plenty for DiCaprio to chew on when he was cast in the part.
As a result, he unsurprisingly found Hughes to be “the most multi-dimensional character I could ever come across,” as he explained to Black Film. “Often, people have tried to define him in biographies,” he said. “No one seems to be able to categorize him. He was one of the most complicated men of the last century.”
DiCaprio wanted The Aviator to focus on “that great see-saw act” of Hughes’ existence as the story progressed, tracing his evolution from somebody “having all the successes in the world” to a withering hermit cursed by a fear of how “the tiny microbes and germs are the things that are taking him downwards.”
Doing a blow-by-blow film based on Hughes’ life from beginning to end would be much better suited to a multi-episode miniseries than a conventional future, but DiCaprio and Scorsese still managed to find the heart of the character to deliver a fantastic old-fashioned biopic that endures as one of the actor’s best-ever performances.
