Leonardo DiCaprio names the role that was “the funnest character to play ever”
Actors often have a different definition of fun to people in most other lines of work, which remained applicable to Leonardo DiCaprio when he reflected on a character he found to be an especially enjoyable one to play on the big screen.
Then again, it might have something to do with the fact he’s hardly been a regular presence in comedies. While his performances in The Wolf of Wall Street, Django Unchained, and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood have been able to make audiences laugh for a myriad of reasons, he never went in with the intention of splitting folks at the sides.
Even his turn in Adam McKay’s Don’t Look Up was rooted in his well-known environmental advocacy, which is the closest he’s ever come to starring in a conventional mainstream broad comedy. That doesn’t mean he can’t have fun dealing in more serious subject matter, though, with the moment that singled him out as a star in waiting standing out for DiCaprio in that regard.
In what was only his fourth feature, the star landed on the shortlist for ‘Best Supporting Actor’ at the Academy Awards for What’s Eating Gilbert Grape, which released in cinemas a month after he turned 19 years old. It was an immersive, complex, and nuanced performance from the teenager, and it sounds as if he had a whale of a time despite the hard-hitting narrative.
Starring opposite Johnny Depp in Lasse Hallström’s literary adaptation, DiCaprio’s mentally impaired Arnie finds himself constantly getting into trouble, something Depp’s title character struggles to deal with among the many burdens he has to shoulder as the default head of the family, never mind the issues caused by his mother, his affair with a local woman, and the arrival of Juliette Lewis’ Becky on the scene.
DiCaprio may have done extensive research to do justice to the part of Arnie, but as he explained to Time, there seemed to be a lot of leeway when the cameras were rolling. “That was the funnest character to play ever,” he said. “It was so much fun, I was playing it off-camera a lot, too.”
In addition to remaining in character between certain takes, the star shared that improvisation was encouraged, which allowed him to put his own spin on the character that wasn’t necessarily present on the page. “Every scene I just did whatever the hell I wanted,” he offered. “They didn’t have much of a script for my character at all, just a few lines here and there.”
Doing whatever the hell he wanted ended up steering him towards his first Oscar nomination, and having been a resident of the A-list for the last quarter of a century, he’s continued doing whatever the hell he wanted ever since. With the utmost professionalism, of course, DiCaprio is very much the master of his own destiny.
