ARTICLE
Leonardo DiCaprio's Greatest Roles
By Say Peng / 23 Aug 2019 (Friday)
Leonardo DiCaprio is one of the most recognizable and talented actors working today.
Unbelievably, after acting for more than 20 years in more than 20 films, he only won his first and so far only Oscar in 2015 for his lead role in Alejandro Iñárritu's The Revenant.
After a 4-year break, Leo is now back on the big screen with Quentin Tarantino's Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, where he plays TV actor Rick Dalton.
Leo has given some of cinema's most memorable performances and here are some of them.
1. Revolutionary Road
Made in 1997, Titanic launched Leo into international stardom. Even though his chemistry with Kate Winslet was electric, Leo's performance was nothing to shout about.
Fast forward 11 years, Leo teams up with Winslet for the second time in Sam Mendes' Revolutionary Road and the results are electric.
The shoot drained him so much that Leo had to postpone his next film for 2 months.
Despite being one of his more impactful roles, it's shocking that Leo didn't even get nominated for the Oscars.
2. Wolf of Wall Street
Jordan Belfort is one of the most electric performances that Leo has given.
In the movie as in real life, Belfort snorted a lot of coke. Leo, as well as his co-star, went to great lengths to accurately portray the effect of being high coke.
Belfort said in an interview, "I showed him what it looks and feels like when you are high on quaaludes. I... started crawling around. We were both on the floor, drooling. His father walked into the room and asked us what the f*ck we were doing."
However, Leo's best scenes were with his on-screen wife Naomi, played by Margot Robbie. Their arguments are volcanic eruptions and display some of the pair's best acting.
3. The Aviator
The Aviator was the second time that Leo worked with Martin Scorsese, their first being Gangs of New York.
Leo plays the reclusive billionaire Howard Hughes.
He spent many hours developing and working out Hughes' OCD behavior. He also met people suffering from OCD, focusing on the tiny habits that some of them have such as washing their hands compulsively.
4. The Revenant
What does it take for Leo to get his first Oscar?
In an interview, he said, “I can name 30 or 40 sequences that were some of the most difficult things I’ve ever had to do. Whether it’s going in and out of frozen rivers, or sleeping in animal carcasses, or what I ate on set. [I was] enduring freezing cold and possible hypothermia constantly.”
Yes, that's what it takes. I doubt Leo was actually acting in some of those sequences. He was living it.
5. Django Unchained
Although Leo is only a minor character in this movie, he completely dominates his scenes and left an indelible performance.
Leo was so in character that when he slammed his hand on the table and cut his hand. Most actors would break character and stop the take, but not Leo. He just continued, even incorporating his bloodied hand into the performance.
To intimidate Django and the Doctor, Leo wiped his blood all over Broomhilda's face.
Absolute class.
6. Catch Me If You Can
Jordan Belfort, Billy Costigan, Frank Abagnale Jr... Leo certainly has a knack for playing fraudsters and impersonators.
But this one, in particular, would be appealing to Leo, or any other actor for that matter because Frank Abagnale Jr is essentially an actor.
Abagnale was very happy about Leo playing him, saying "I love it—no matter how old I get, people are going to think that’s what I look like."
7. Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
Leo, the most bankable movie star of our era, plays struggling TV actor Rick Dalton in Quentin Tarantino's supposed last film, which world premiered at Cannes Film Festival in May.
This is the second time that Leo has worked with Tarantino.
Admittedly, Dalton is not a particularly difficult role to play, but Leo brings a certain pathos to Dalton that makes him especially relatable and enjoyable to watch.
The scenes between Leo and Trudi Fraser, who plays a precocious child actor in Once Upon a Time, is pure preciousness.
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood is currently showing in cinemas.