“I was aware of that”: the public pissing contest that disrespected Leonardo DiCaprio
As one of cinema’s most private superstars who keeps himself to himself when he’s not fulfilling his duties as one of his generation’s best actors, don’t expect Leonardo DiCaprio to get caught up in any public mud-slinging.
However, there was one occasion when he found himself caught in the middle of a war of words that aired some dirty laundry in public, and there was nothing he could do about it. For the most part, he held his tongue, but he couldn’t help but admit that the situation had gotten under his skin.
He was an innocent party, albeit one who was caught in the crossfire. After Titanic became the highest-grossing release in cinema history, DiCaprio had his pick of the parts, and his asking price had increased dramatically. After a flirtation with American Psycho that irritated Christian Bale, he opted to spend the early months of 1999 shooting Danny Boyle’s The Beach instead.
It was the Trainspotting director’s biggest production to date, even if over a third of the picture’s budget was spent on the leading man’s $20 million salary. Nobody bothered to tell Ewan McGregor that the role of Richard wasn’t his, though, with Boyle’s frequent collaborator revealing that he “was led to believe I was playing that part for a long time.”
McGregor characterised it as a betrayal, which caused a rift with the filmmaker that would take two decades to heal. Meanwhile, DiCaprio had to sit there and keep his mouth shut while another actor who felt they were entitled to a part he’d been hired to play ran their mouth about how he’d been robbed.
When asked if he’d been paying attention to McGregor’s rants, he said that he had. “Yeah, I was aware of that,” DiCaprio acknowledged, but he didn’t feel bad about it, because it was a situation he wasn’t directly involved with. “It just became another one of these things for me, that’s all.”
And yet, when pressed on whether he thought it was disrespectful for the Scotsman to rant and rave to anyone who’d listen that The Beach was his for the taking until it was yanked away in favour of someone else, he agreed that it was. “Yeah,” he replied. “You know, yeah, absolutely.”
If anything, McGregor dodged a bullet. The Beach may have made money at the box office, which was to be expected of DiCaprio’s first top-billed appearance on the big screen since Titanic, but it was also one of the worst movies he’s ever been in, an unwanted accolade that it continues to hold almost three decades later.
The Trainspotting pair eventually made up in time to make a sequel to their breakout sensation, but when his replacement first arrived on set with McGregor’s words still ringing in his ears, DiCaprio had a bad taste in his mouth.
