The actor who influenced Leonardo DiCaprio the most: “If I had to queue into one”
Leonardo DiCaprio is a self-taught star. While plenty of Hollywood’s top names are alumni of factory-like acting classes that have churned out icon after icon, he did things his own way, quitting school and hitting the open casting circuit.
It wasn’t without its challenges, obviously. Even though DiCaprio managed to kick things off rather young and land major roles like playing Arnold Grape by 19, or playing literature’s ultimate leading man, Romeo, when he was only 21, it was still a tough climb with no backing.
But DiCaprio always seemed to have one secret weapon: his sheer self-belief. When he couldn’t land an agent, and people kept telling him to switch his name to something blander like Lenny Williams, the hopeful actor had the self-awareness to stand firm. He stuck to his guns, even after facing more than 100 failed auditions.
Even after that, when things started moving somewhat with a string of small TV appearances, DiCaprio was still booking more commercials than anything else. Despite it all, though, his will was strong, and so with no formal teacher, his own motivation led him to design himself a curriculum.
Around the time DiCaprio booked his first proper feature film, This Boy’s Life, in 1993, he was training himself up by learning from the greats. “I gave myself a weird at-home tutorial on cinema history,” he told Deadline, explaining that the teenager thought, “I’m going to lock myself away for months at a time and just watch VHS tapes obsessively.”
During that time, DiCaprio watched the classics, taking notes from titans of cinema and studying how they acted. It introduced him to so many of his heroes, but amongst them all, one stood out.
Or really, two did as the actor said, “There were a lot of great actors I really fell in love with, but if I were to pick two, from different generations, it would be De Niro and James Dean.”
But the more he reflected on it, the more he seemed to boil it down to placing James Dean in the lead, remaining moved by what he saw as the cinematic idol’s main strength, stating, “There was something about [Dean’s] vulnerability.”
In attempting to explain, he borrowed words from Dennis Hopper, recounting a phrase in a documentary about Dean where the actor said, “You have Monty Clift, on one hand, saying help me, and on the other hand, you have Brando saying f*ck you. And somewhere in the middle is James Dean.”
In his self-education, he saw both sides. Witnessing the rage of some performers and the tenderness of others, what he saw in Dean was a man who could do it all, even though he really didn’t have long to prove it. Dean died tragically young when the star had really only just risen, yet still, with the few projects he did do, his impact on the movie world, and in particular on male actors, is immeasurable.
For DiCaprio, preparing to tackle his first major role, this was a breakthrough. “I just saw the vulnerability of this young actor and the rage in him, too,” he said, “In particular, East of Eden, his first major role. I was just so cued into what he…so connected to him as a young man.”
In a lot of ways, though, he could be talking about himself. If DiCaprio’s early career especially had to be characterised in only a few words, that balance of vulnerability and rage would sum it up perfectly, as he would catch eyes and make his name thanks to a string of deeply moving, introspective yet angsty characters that quickly showed his range and potential.
