Yeah, he's fast became one of my favourite actors personally. He clearly made a choice after Titanic that he wasn't going to fall into the trap of doing shitty romantic comedies and the like to please the droves of women who would have been wet as an otters pocket for him after Titanic, and I respect that. He chose his projects wisely, and the truth is that after Titanic, he kinda disappeared for a while. With the exception of the Beach, I never remember seeing him in anything at all.
I can imagine it was a bit of a hard time for him actually, if, like Howard says, he was trying to carve himself out as a serious character actor. His pretty boy Jack Dawson image would have been highly sought after by studio execs who want nothing more than box office draw for the drooling masses, and I imagine it must have been tough for him to sell himself as a serious player as opposed to some Matthew McConaughey who just does whatever shitty script lands on his desk. And the reason I choose to reference him is cause I actually think he could have been a good actor if he wasn't such a knob. But Leonardo Di Caprio clearly didn't want that for himself, and he held out.
Now, I had a conversation about this with Relun on IRC one day, and I was basically saying that Di Caprio was pretty much my favourite actor of this generation. Now, everybody I say this too always says 'Nah. Nah, not him. He's good but, not him' Unfortunately that Titanic stigma is still there, and no guy wants to admit how good he is, even though he's been in a shit load of cracking films now, and in my opinion, hasn't been in a bad one at all. Not by Matthew McConaughey standards anyway.
Martin Scorcese seen it though. He saw that he had the chops to be a serious player and he cast him in Gangs of New York. Now, I, like everybody else here probably, laughed when he came out of the orphanage at the beginning of the film and I was supposed to believe he was a tough guy. Cause that image was still stuck to him, of the lover, not the fighter. But I'll be damned if it hasn't been rubbed off since then. If not by Gangs of New York, then by Blood Diamond. If anybody hasn't seen Blood Diamond, he plays an ex-South African soldier who basically traffics the titular blood diamonds through Western African countries to the rich West. I thought it was absolutely fantastic, and it was really when I started to take notice of what he was doing.
But back to Scorcese. As everybody knows, he's cast him in four of his recent movies. Four of them. And he's pretty much always the lead character. I say pretty much, cause the Departed is really an ensemble piece and it would be doing an injustice to the other actors to give Di Caprio top billing. But he's right up there folks, and that to me really says a lot. That's praise from Caesar. This is the man who crafted Robert De Niro into one of the finest actors of all time. He saw something in Bobby De Niro, and wanted to run with it. Something I think he see's in Di Caprio too. Something I know I see, and have done for a long time.
And his rising popularity is testament to that fact I feel. And I'm glad too. Cause he waited out that period after Titanic, and didn't put a nasty little blotch on his resume, starring alongside Sarah Jessica 'The Foot' Parker in some horrifying little number. He waited until something found him that put him on the road to greatness. And yes, I think he's on the road to greatness.
And we can necro post this thread when he wins his first Oscar.
So aye... I quite like his films.
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