Profile: Leonardo DiCaprio

Have you ever thought to yourself – who is my favourite actor? Whose films do I enjoy the most? What is it about him and his performances that make me enjoy his films the most? These are open questions with very vague answers as anybody could be mentioned. However, there is the possibility of the audience’s most popular actor, one that has contributed culturally as much as individually.

Out of all Hollywood male stars that spring to mind, the one who is an ultimate stand out as arguably Hollywood’s most popular is five-time Oscar nominee Leonardo DiCaprio. Ever since his magnificent Oscar-nominated performance in What’s Eating Gilbert Grape and gaining international fame in the global phenomenon Titanic, DiCaprio has shone massively across the film industry with an abundance of superb performances and has worked with some of today’s greatest directors and actors. He really has, if you think about it.

Directors include Martin Scorsese (Gangs Of New York, The Aviator, The Departed, Shutter Island, The Wolf Of Wall Street), Christopher Nolan (Inception), Steven Spielberg (Catch Me If You Can), Danny Boyle (The Beach), Quentin Tarantino (Django Unchained), James Cameron (Titanic), Sam Mendes (Revolutionary Road), Clint Eastwood (J. Edgar), Alejandro G. Iñárritu (The Revenant), Woody Allen (Celebrity), Baz Luhrmann (Romeo + Juliet, The Great Gatsby), Ridley Scott (Body Of Lies), Sam Raimi (The Quick and the Dead) and Lasse Hallström (What’s Eating Gilbert Grape).

For these reasons, DiCaprio could arguably be a Hollywood director’s favourite star and in each of his films, he has delivered diverse performances. The audience love him for it, too. However, despite his varied choice of roles, DiCaprio is a true ‘quality over quantity’ star. Is that a good thing? It certainly makes audiences more eager to see his forthcoming films, and to see that long-awaited Oscar winning performance.

This article will be chronologically looking at the career of Leonardo DiCaprio from his early career to the present day, arguing the idea that he is Hollywood’s most popular star and that you do not need to win an Academy Award to win over the audience.

Early Films and the Gilbert Grape Breakthrough

Leonardo DiCaprio was born on November 11th 1974 to parents of German and Italian descent; hence the surname originating from the latter country. His European background allowed him to speak German fluently, something we have yet to see from DiCaprio on the screen. He was named after Italian artist Leonardo Da Vinci and, it has transpired, DiCaprio has become an artist in another sector.

DiCaprio began his on-screen career in a number of TV commercials and short films in the late 1980’s and early 90’s. His feature film debut, in 1991, Critters 3, a comedy horror, was met with a negative reception as was thriller Poison Ivy in 1992. 1993 was a defining year in DiCaprio’s career as he starred in two films. One was This Boy’s Life in which he co-starred alongside Robert De Niro. A possible foreshadowing, perhaps? (Both DiCaprio and De Niro are well-known as frequent leading stars in films by Martin Scorsese.) The other 1993 film starring DiCaprio, which caught public attention, was his Academy Award nominated performance in What’s Eating Gilbert Grape.

As an eighteen (pushing nineteen) year old at the time, this film saw DiCaprio in the role of a mentally disabled teenager with severe developmental disabilities, some of which appear to be symptoms of autism. This performance not only earned him his first of five Oscar nominations, but ultimately showed what potential DiCaprio had and what he was capable of pulling off in future projects.

The film industry considers the performance of disability by an able-bodied actor as a skill. Considering this, DiCaprio’s role in What’s Eating Gilbert Grape has been considered an accurate portrayal of a mentally disabled adolescent with complex disabilities. This role was just the beginning for DiCaprio, as stardom awaited.

The Path to Stardom

At this point, Leonardo DiCaprio’s career began to rise further in mainstream cinema. From having a supporting role in Sam Raimi’s The Quick and the Dead and his leading performances in Total Eclipse and Don’s Plum, DiCaprio continued to be Hollywood’s baby-faced teenager in the mid-1990s. Perhaps his first triumphant feature in mainstream cinema was his titular role in Romeo & Juliet, a contemporary adaptation of Shakespeare’s play. The original story remains timeless and stands among Shakespeare’s most successful works. This was advantageous, in some respect, to DiCaprio’s star status and the unique twist that the adaptation had from the original.

Despite this, the role that really kicked off DiCaprio’s stardom status was in 1997 when he played Jack Dawson in Titanic by James Cameron. Based on the disaster in April 1912 during the ship’s maiden voyage, his character is a fictionalized addition to the story of the infamous tragedy. Starring alongside Kate Winslet, both of them became arguably the most popular couple in Hollywood at that time.

His performance was well-received, but unfortunately with no Academy Award nomination. Due to the cultural significance of Titanic and its overwhelming success, DiCaprio suddenly rose to be a glamorous Hollywood star in a huge way. To quote his famous line “I’m the king of the world!” from Titanic, it certainly seemed that the grand stage for DiCaprio had been set.

However, in the 1990s, after Titanic, DiCaprio’s roles were not quite on the same cultural or critical scale. How many films, though, have beaten Titanic’s grossing record? Just one. Following this extraordinary success, DiCaprio starred as two characters (the title character and antagonist) in The Man In The Iron Mask, a Alexandre Dumas novel adaptation, before taking roles in films with bigger directors like Woody Allen in Celebrity and the leading role in Danny Boyle’s The Beach.

At this stage, on the brink of the 21st century, Leonardo DiCaprio became one of Hollywood’s golden stars. His diverse performances and stardom continued into the 2000s, particularly in his collaboration with Martin Scorsese.

Hollywood’s Golden Star: The Scorsese Collaborations

It is probably every Hollywood star’s dream to be in the leading role of a film by a notorious and successful director. The great Martin Scorsese, who has been a pioneering director since the 1970s and has aligned himself with some of the greatest actors of all time (i.e. Robert De Niro and Joe Pesci). From 2002 to the present day, Leonardo DiCaprio has collaborated with Martin Scorsese on five films. The first was Gangs Of New York, in 2002, in a role that saw him star alongside three-time Oscar winner Daniel Day-Lewis, and is a brutal Civil War tale in Manhattan, New York.

In addition to his performances in Martin Scorsese films, Leonardo DiCaprio took other roles both before and during that time period. We got an insight into DiCaprio’s slightly villainous side as an actor as conman Frank Abagnale in Steven Spielberg’s Catch Me If You Can in 2002, a film that saw him star alongside another multiple Oscar winner – Tom Hanks.

DiCaprio failed to gain an Oscar nomination for his performance but his role in The Aviator, as innovative pilot and philanthropist Howard Hughes earned him his second. The Aviator was also the start of DiCaprio’s typecasting in biographical dramas as he has appeared in quite a number of them since, as historical figures.

In 2006, DiCaprio had two chances at Oscar glory with his third Martin Scorsese film – The Departed. A film filled with an impressive ensemble cast, including three-time Oscar winner Jack Nicholson and Matt Damon, with DiCaprio leading it as William “Billy” Costigan, a young man with a criminal background who becomes an undercover cop to thwart Boston’s top gangster. The other film was Blood Diamond  by Edward Zwick, in which DiCaprio earned his third Oscar nomination as white African smuggler Danny Archer.

After The Departed, DiCaprio featured in Body Of Lies by Ridley Scott with Russell Crowe in a joint leading role, a film that received a mixed critical reception. Later that year, though, he reunited with his Titanic co-star Kate Winslet in Revolutionary Road by Sam Mendes, a drama set in 1950’s suburban America in which the two played a married couple. People have jokingly compared their reunion to their roles in Titanic (e.g. specifically the life and marriage of Jack and Rose after the sinking). This role saw DiCaprio playing a family man with both a spouse and children, yet neither have happened to him in his 41 years.

Grittier Roles and Continuing the Oscar Quest

At this stage in his life, being in his mid-30s (pushing 40 years old), DiCaprio was no longer the baby-faced youngster who we saw in Romeo & Juliet and Titanic. His age was starting to catch up with him, and his choice of roles during this time period became much darker and, more importantly, broadened his horizons further as an actor. The characters he portrayed had a much darker approach than what we first saw of DiCaprio, as he took roles of antagonists or psychologically traumatised protagonists.

DiCaprio returned to his fourth Martin Scorsese picture in 2010 with Shutter Island, a film that challenged DiCaprio’s acting calibre on a psychological level. The film was released in March 2010 instead of its original date of October 2009, so sadly it missed its Oscar chance that year. DiCaprio’s performance, though, was highly acclaimed and was considered an overlooked performance in terms of accolades. Later in the summer, DiCaprio returned to his blockbuster stardom for the first time since Titanic in 1997 and played the leading role in Christopher Nolan’s sci-fi heist Inception, a style of film that DiCaprio wasn’t really associated with until then.

In 2011, DiCaprio played another historical figure as J. Edgar Hoover, an FBI director who was possibly a closeted homosexual, in a biopic directed by Clint Eastwood. The film received a mixed critical reception but DiCaprio’s performance was acclaimed.

Out of any performance in DiCaprio’s career where he really raised the bar and went above the limit of what we have seen before is in his villainous role in spaghetti western Django Unchained by the legendary Quentin Tarantino. Being tagged in a supporting role for the first time in years, the film saw DiCaprio at his most evil and despicable. His performance was often shocking, especially by his overly explicit use of a certain racist term. It showed his grittier approach to his characters and his adaptability in portraying characters outside of what many people recognise him for.

In 2013, DiCaprio returned to work with Baz Luhrmann (Romeo & Juliet) in another adaptation of The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, alongside Carey Mulligan and Tobey Maguire. Later that year, we saw DiCaprio continue his collaboration for a fifth time with Martin Scorsese in The Wolf Of Wall Street, a 3-hour black comedy about a stockbroker living in New York City, whose crimes of fraud and corruption lead to his downfall.

That film saw DiCaprio once again play a historical figure as Jordan Belfort, but interestingly this guy was neither a hero nor a villain. The Wolf Of Wall Street is DiCaprio’s latest collaboration with Scorsese (as well as his most recent generally) so what they may have lined up next will be an interesting addition. Rumors already suggest an adaptation of Erik Larson’s novel The Devil In The White City.

This winter, Leonardo DiCaprio is set to star in The Revenant by recent Oscar winning director Alejandro G. Iñárritu. Some have already claimed that it could become DiCaprio’s ultimate performance, and one that will gain him that long-awaited Oscar. Judging from his preparation for the role (such as sleeping in an animal’s carcass), it seems he’s raised the bar even higher than he did with Django Unchained. It may possibly be DiCaprio’s most challenging role to date as he’s actually a protagonist who is much grittier than ones you’ve seen before, and his deepest desire is bloody revenge. So, it’ll be exciting to see where DiCaprio goes with this upcoming role.

Conclusion

Although fans and critics alike are frustrated that Leonardo DiCaprio has yet to win that Oscar, DiCaprio himself doesn’t consider his role as an actor to become a goal-orientated career. According to an unofficial Tumblr account of DiCaprio’s, he has supposedly said: 

“I don’t think I ever expected anything like an Oscar ever, to tell you the truth.  That is not my motivation when I do these roles. I really am motivated by being able to work with great people and create a body of work that I can look back on and be proud of.”

As DiCaprio himself already said, becoming a star does not necessarily mean winning all the awards. He highlights the importance of audience engagement and general experience of acting on a film set. As long as one wins over its audience, that’s what counts.

Leonardo DiCaprio is certainly among one of the most popular stars in Hollywood today and is a director’s favourite to work with and to feature as their leading or supporting actor. After recently celebrating his 41st birthday, Leonardo DiCaprio has provided some of the most popular roles to date, but he still has many years of his career to come where he can deliver some more wonderful performances.

What is your favourite Leonardo DiCaprio performance? Will he finally win a long-awaited Oscar for The Revenant?