Leonardo DiCaprio - The Biography. Douglas Wight
to be famous. Do you know what you’re missing?” But now, Leo has so many girls wanting to date him, I think it’s good for him to have experienced a little rejection!’
To other pupils, Leo was ‘a whirlwind’. School pal Sky Bushy told the Daily Mirror: ‘He was always moving and talking and messing around. He had a real big crush on Jennifer.’
When it came for filming on This Boy’s Life to start, Leonardo put any unrequited teenage crushes to one side and set about producing a performance he would be proud of. As he was to find out, though, the experience of making a film with a screen legend was a real baptism of fire – and unlike anything he’d experienced in acting up until that point. ‘This role was different from any other I had played,’ he says. ‘This was something that was true, that actually happened to this guy. When you are in the moment of a powerful story like that, you just can’t but feel emotionally disrupted.’
And he recalls: ‘When De Niro showed up on the set, it was like the Pope showed up. Everything is on lockdown. “Shh, shh, quiet!”’
As if the hushed reverence wasn’t daunting enough, when it was time for the two to do scenes together, Leonardo found himself totally perplexed when his older co-star and famous improviser strayed from the script. ‘I don’t know what the hell is going on,’ he said, remembering his mind-set back then. ‘If he says something that’s not on the page, do I say, “OK, that was wrong”? “Oh, Bob, you said the wrong line”? See, no, I was supposed to come back and say something – I had no idea how it worked.’
Despite the steep learning curve he was on, Leonardo was able to be himself and enjoyed playing the joker on set and with the rest of the crew. In short, he was a wiseass but rather than antagonise his more illustrious co-stars, this brought them closer together.
‘It was good for the part,’ recalled De Niro, who looked on with amusement, but he did have call to reprimand the young upstart on one occasion, which left Leonardo wondering whether or not the Academy Award winner was joking.
‘I was filming a scene with him where he was trying to impress my mom, played by Ellen Barkin, with a Zippo lighter. Ellen found this so hilarious; the whole set was in hysterics. Towards the twenty-fifth take I was getting a little agitated because I was usually the one getting the laughs. So I stand up and goes, “C’mon guys, can we be a little more professional here? You’re laughing all the time, I have things to do!” I was a bit of a smartass. Bob takes me aside and goes, “You know, there’s a line with jokes and you shouldn’t cross that line because sometimes you can’t get back.”’
But there was no real danger of Leonardo crossing that line. From the moment he saw the legendary Robert De Niro on set, he was bowled over by his professionalism and experience.
‘Earlier, at 14,’ Leo recalls, ‘I was already wanting to be recognised as an adult; when I was doing This Boy’s Life, I wanted to be as old as Robert De Niro and as experienced as him and have the same respect as he did in that movie. I’m just starting to scratch the surface of what really makes me happy.’
During filming – on location in Vancouver, Moab and Salt Lake City in Utah, but mostly in Concrete, Washington (the small Cascade Mountain town, where Wolff grew up, which was transformed to its 1950s appearance) – there was really nothing in Leonardo’s rather meagre body of work to suggest he could pull off a part as demanding as this one. It was the first time he’d tackled a real character and the complexity of Toby Wolff’s relationship with De Niro’s character was nothing he’d ever explored before in any of his lesser roles.
Yet, somehow, with Caton-Jones’ careful direction and De Niro’s stewardship, Leo was able to produce a performance that showed real potential. Indeed, De Niro was suitably impressed to let director Martin Scorsese know that this was a kid to look out for. Leo, meanwhile, credited Caton-Jones for guiding him through every step and paving the way for him to have ‘the ultimate trust in directors, because that’s how I was brought into this movie world, by Michael Caton-Jones literally taking me under his wing.’
He added: ‘Michael Caton-Jones was very much like a father figure to me when I made This Boy’s Life. I didn’t know how to conduct myself on a movie set, I didn’t know what the rules were, I didn’t know what kind of investment you make in a movie.’
The film had a limited release when it reached cinema screens in April 1993 but still managed to go top ten, grossing $5 million at the box office. Although financially a modest success, critically it was much better received, with many reviewers raving about the performance of the previously unknown teenage star.
Bob Strauss, film critic of the LA Daily News, declared it was ‘the profound honesty with which Robert De Niro and young Leonardo DiCaprio inhabit their roles that sells the whole, sadly stirring thing.’ Of newcomer Leo, he added: ‘DiCaprio exhibits an impressive range and an even more impressive sense of proportion. Called upon to be sensitive, smart-mouthed, naive, hurt, angry, cocky and more, he does them all without ever overwhelming the character’s fundamental intelligence. It’s as full and convincing a portrait of rebellious adolescence as the movies have given us.’
After the film was completed, Leo reflected on what he’d achieved with the role. He said: ‘Everything I’ve done before This Boy’s Life is just, I don’t want to say below, but doing This Boy’s Life was such a step up in my career; it was such a difference. It was real acting as opposed to just being cute or whatever.’
His step up was confirmed with his first gong – the New Generation Award from the Los Angeles Film Critics Association.
He celebrated his arrival, after 18 years in Hollywood, by buying himself a $35,000 Jeep Cherokee – ‘It’s kind of rugged and strong and fierce’ – and while he lamented the fact that being a movie star still wasn’t a guarantee he could land himself a girlfriend, he was wary of girls only attracted to him now because of his status.
‘That’s something I have to watch out for,’ he admitted, maybe cynically. ‘Girls who won’t look at me for my personality, but for my pocketbook.’
And, as left school for the last time and perhaps reflecting on his poor run of luck with homecoming queen Jennifer, he said of his time there: ‘I wasn’t exactly the stud. I tried to make girls laugh. They thought I was cute, but nothing serious like Biff, who was wearing the leather jacket.’
One of the key scenes adding to the buzz around DiCaprio on the release of This Boy’s Life was a sensitively handled gay kiss between Toby and his sexually-repressed friend Arthur, played by Jonah Blechman. Caton-Jones praised Leonardo’s courage in handling this potentially tricky scene but its inclusion – and the lack of female interest from the young heartthrob – prompted speculation about his private life that would ultimately plague him for years.
Leonardo would occasionally hit out at the unfounded speculation, saying: ‘I don’t see why I can’t have friends of both sexes without wild rumours being circulated. It’s crazy! If I want to go to a party with a few male friends, it doesn’t mean I’m gay.’
On other occasions he’d dismiss such rumours with the contempt they deserved. When asked what were the worst things he’d heard about himself, he replied: ‘That I’m gay. I heard that I was going out with Ellen Barkin [nearly 20 years his senior]; that I’m an alien. Nothing that odd, I guess.’
Still, at that age, the worst thing that can happen to an up-and-coming actor is not to be talked about and Leo certainly set tongues wagging with his assured ‘debut’ performance. There were whispers about an Oscar nomination but 1993 was blessed with a number of stellar performances from teenage actors, with Anna Paquin’s breathtaking turn in The Piano, while Christina Ricci sparkled in The Addams Family.
He was in exalted company, but Leonardo DiCaprio hadn’t yet finished creating a buzz in that year.