LEO-MANIA STRIKES AGAIN
by Linus Tee | 8 April 2010

Mention the word “Titanic” and instead of the 1912 tragic disaster, you will probably hear people bringing up the names of James Cameron and a certain actor called Leonardo DiCaprio. Indeed, the 36-year-old actor has gone from child actor to teenage heartthrob to serious actor to being an environmentalist over the years, a transformation that has amazed the media industry and audiences worldwide.

THE BEGINNING

Raised and born in Los Angeles, the boyish actor started his acting career at the young age of fourteen. Like many other child actors of his time, he dabbled in B-grade movies, soap operas, commercials and short stints in sitcoms such as “Parenthood” and “Growing Pains”. It was not until 1993 that Hollywood started to notice this charming young actor. His performance as an autistic kid opposite Johnny Depp in Swedish director Lasse Hallstrom’s critically acclaimed film, “What’s Eating Gilbert Grape?” earned him his first Academy Award and Golden Globe Nomination for Best Supporting Actor.

In 1995, Leonardo DiCaprio went on to star in the controversial “The Basketball Diaries”, a movie which dealt with prostitution and drugs. This was quickly followed by the Sam Raimi Western “The Quick and the Dead” opposite Sharon Stone and Russell Crowe. But it was Baz Luhrmann's updated screen-adaptation of William Shakespeare's "Romeo + Juliet", a movie made on a tiny budget that went on to earn a massive US$147 million at the box-office, which established him as a mainstream star.

LEO-MANIA

"I was indie boy before Romeo and Juliet and Titanic. I'd never dealt with any of that in my life," says DiCaprio in a 1999 Rolling Stones interview. By then, he was already a worldwide sensation and pin-up boy. The huge success of “Titanic” in 1997 propelled DiCaprio to his newfound status as a Hollywood superstar. With his face constantly gracing the tabloids, magazines, papers, Leonardo’s Jack Dawson was the idol of every schoolgirl- ‘Leo-mania’ was virtually everywhere. But the mammoth unprecedented success of “Titanic” also left Leonardo searching for a good followup and it would take three years before he found it, though not before his much-publicized heavy partying and boozing with fellow celebs including Tobey Maguire.

He returned to leading-man status with the Danny Boyle screen adaptation of the best selling novel "The Beach" by Alex Garland in 2000. Unfortunately the movie was largely panned by critics for being muddled and unfocused, and was relatively ignored by audiences worldwide- notwithstanding the controversial lawsuit about the environmental damage that the shoot had cost.

THE COMEBACK KID

To prove he was no flash in the pan, Leonardo returned two years later with not one but two movies helmed by two of the most gifted directors of all time. The first was Steven Spielberg’s “Catch Me If You Can”, with his portrayal of real-life conman Frank Abagnale Jr earning him his third nomination for Best Actor in the Golden Globes. The second was Martin Scorsese’s “Gangs of New York”, the beginning of what was to become a very successful creative partnership.

In an interview with TIME's Richard Corliss, DiCaprio hailed Scorsese as a visionary who can masterfully assemble hidden mechanisms that people don't realize make a movie operate seamlessly. DiCaprio’s admiration for the legendary filmmaker led him to star in the biopic of Howard Hughes, “The Aviator” in 2004 and his performance as the eccentric billionaire earned him his first official Oscar nomination for Best Actor.

Besides busily chalking up his acting credentials, DiCaprio also began to venture into environmental work, using his celebrity status to spread the word about global warming, producing and narrating the documentary “The 11th Hour”. He also capitalized on his increasing respect among his peers to establish his own production company called Appian Way to develop his own projects and others- including the horror thriller “Orphan” and Michael Mann’s “Public Enemies”.

ON THE ROLL

DiCaprio continued his fine streak in 2006 with two critically-acclaimed performances in “Blood Diamond”, set against the backdrop of the chaos and civil war of 1990s Sierra Leone, and “The Departed”, the Hollywood remake of the classic HK crime thriller “Infernal Affairs”. Winner of Best Picture that year, “The Departed” was a movie our in-house reviewer Justin Deimen described as an unapologetically indulgent, masterful effort by Scorsese. That year, he received two nominations for Best Actor at the Golden Globes- one each for “Blood Diamond” and “The Departed”.

His personal life however continued to prove just as interesting as his reel life. Frequently pictured in the tabloids with his on-off girlfriends like Brazilian model Gisele Bündchen and Israeli model Bar Refaeli, DiCaprio just couldn’t seem to shake off his flamboyant playboy image.

In the last three years, DiCaprio continued to boost his Hollywood cred by working with some of the best directors in the industry. There was the CIA thriller “Body of Lies”, directed by legendary British director Ridley Scott, and co-starring Russell Crowe; and the Sam Mendes drama “Revolutionary Road” based on the celebrated Richard Yates’ novel. In particular, it “Revolutionary Road”, about the young couple, Frank and April Wheeler, trying to find fulfillment in an age of conformity, won DiCaprio much critical praise.

THE MAESTRO AND HIS 'MUSE'

Scorcese and DiCaprio would embark on a fourth collaboration, the suspense thriller “Shutter Island”, that was delayed from its original November release date last year to its mid-Feb opening in the U.S. Though naysayers speculated that the move likely meant the movie was awful, critics were generally pleasantly surprised by it- Roger Ebert of The Chicago Sun-Times wrote that it was a flawless directorial command from Scorsese.

“Shutter Island” is also DiCaprio and Scorcese’s most successful collaboration to date, its opening weekend of US$41m triumphing over that of their earlier efforts. Much like the successful pairings of Johnny Depp and Tim Burton, DiCaprio has proudly declared that given the right opportunity, he wouldn’t miss working with Scorsese again. But for now, that’ll have to wait, as he is already slated to star in the next Mel Gibson ‘Viking’ movie and the big-screen version of “The Twilight Zone”.

In the meantime, owning to the delay of “Shutter Island”, it would only be another three months before his next big-budget, big-screen outing- the Christopher Nolan ultra-secretive, sci-fi thriller “Inception”. Yes, we know that we are not alone waiting with eager anticipation for that summer release come July 16. Really, in the twelve years since Jack and Rose, who would have thought that the young heartthrob in “Titanic” would have gone so far and accomplished so much on screen and off.

Shutter Island opens 15 April 2010

James Cameron's Titanic (1997)


Steven Spielberg's Catch Me If You Can (2002)


Martin Scorsese's Gangs Of New York (2002)


Martin Scorsese's TheAviator (2004)


Edward Zwick's Blood Diamond (2006)


Martin Scorsese's The Departed (2006)


Ridley Scott's Body of Lies (2007)


Sam Mendes's Revolutionary Road (2008)


Martin Scorsese's Shutter Island (2009)


Christopher Nolan's Inception (2010)