The uncharted genre Leonardo DiCaprio is “completely open to doing”
There’s a reason why everyone has spent so long saying variety is the spice of life, and it’s been hugely applicable to the career of Leonardo DiCaprio since the very beginning, with one solitary glaring omission.
He made his feature debut in horror when Critters 3 became the first credit on his filmography in 1991, and he’s kept checking off boxes ever since. From Sam Raimi’s riotous Western The Quick and the Dead to the satirical comedy of Don’t Look Up via the biographical stylings of J. Edgar, there aren’t many genres DiCaprio hasn’t dipped his toes into at least once.
Star-crossed romance? Romeo + Juliet had it covered. Epic love stories and disaster dramas? James Cameron’s Titanic ticked both. Action-packed blockbusters? Christopher Nolan signed him up for Inception. Period pieces? Martin Scorsese has been making a habit out of it by recruiting DiCaprio for a number of stories set in the past.
Political thrillers? Blood Diamond. Literary adaptations? The Great Gatsby. Swashbucklers? The Man in the Iron Mask. There’s been a concerted effort on the actor’s part to ensure he tries his hand at as many different offshoots of cinema as possible, except one. Not that he’s completely against it, either; he just hasn’t been presented with a screenplay that fits his selective criteria.
“I am completely open to doing a romantic comedy, but I will never do something just for the sake of doing a specific genre or because it’s the time or place to do a different type of movie,” he explained to The Talks. “I think that would be a huge mistake. Ultimately I read a script and I say, ‘Woah, I am emotionally engaged in this’.”
The Academy Award winner chooses his projects very carefully and has done ever since he became a superstar, and so far there hasn’t been a rom-com to pass the DiCaprio test. “I never think about the subject matter, what it will be to popular culture, what it means historically, ultimately all that stuff passes and this movie will come out and it’s either good or it’s not,” he said. “So that’s the only way I know how to pick films, otherwise I am not connected to it.”
The downside is that time might be running out for any aspiring screenwriter who thinks they’ve cracked the code that would convince DiCaprio to end his exile from the rom-com. Not to be too blunt about it, but the genre doesn’t have a whole lot of stories where the lead roles are played by middle-aged men, and DiCaprio turns 50 years old in November 2024.
That’s not to say it can’t or won’t happen eventually, but if he’s more than 30 years into his career and there hasn’t been a single light and frothy romantic caper to tickle his fancy, then maybe it shall forever remain un-tickled.
