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Leonardo DiCaprio
Leonardo DiCaprio aspires to greatness. Most actors dream the dream, but Leo lives it. Sure, he's been lucky. Since the billion dollar bonanza Titanic, he hasn't had to worry about anything so mundane as proving his box-office worth. He commands top dollar, no matter that he hasn't appeared in a bone fide blockbuster since. If James Cameron's movie had turned out to be the disaster some Twentieth Century Fox executives feared it was going to be, you can be sure his filmography would look very different today. (For one thing, he'd almost certainly have a comic book franchise to his name: be it Peter Parker or Bruce Wayne.) Like his friend Tobey Maguire, DiCaprio came from a relatively poor background, but he found success as an actor early on, racking up regular TV appearances by the time he was 16. Critics and industry insiders realised he was something special when he brought such palpable emotion to the title role in his third film, This Boy's Life, opposite Robert De Niro. (De Niro evidently remained a fan. He wanted DiCaprio for the lead in The Good Shepherd, but scheduling conflicts meant Matt Damon ended up with the part.) He followed it with another eye-catching performance, this time playing Johnny Depp's autistic younger brother in What's Eating Gilbert Grape? (1993). It's the sort of technically challenging role that actors appreciate, and while Depp was overlooked, DiCaprio was nominated for an Academy Award as Best Supporting Actor. He was the new golden boy, a sensitive teenager with an angelic face and a troubled, brooding brow. Sharon Stone, who had casting control on The Quick and the Dead, hand picked him to go up against Russell Crowe and Gene Hackman as 'The Kid'. 
He played cult novelist Jim Carroll in The Basketball Diaries and the poet Rimbaud in Total Eclipse, two teenage prodigies who turned to drugs (DiCaprio who inherited Total Eclipse from River Phoenix, has always insisted he's left well alone). Neither movie lived up to its potential, but they cemented DiCaprio's reputation as the most serious of the young contenders, the Jimmy Dean of grunge. When Baz Luhrmann was looking for his Romeo, DiCaprio was the obvious choice. This souped up Shakespearean tragedy was Leo's first box office hit. By now he was a heart-throb to legions of teenage fans - the base who would make Titanic the phenomenon it became. And since getting carte blanche, what has DiCaprio done with it? For a start, he hasn't cashed in. With the exception of The Man in the Iron Mask, which he committed to before the Cameron movie opened, he hasn't done a pure popcorn flick. He certainly hasn't spread himself too thin, either. In the decade since Titanic, he's only made eight films, including a small role in Celebrity, and there is nothing new in the can. Over the same period, Kate Winslet has starred in a dozen pictures, done voice work on four more, and had two kids. 
You might say he's lazy, but he's made a commitment to work with the best, and by all accounts has thrown himself into these parts with the kind of dedication De Niro used to be famous for. Of those eight films, he's worked with Martin Scorsese three times (Gangs of New York; The Aviator; and The Departed), Woody Allen (Celebrity), and Steven Spielberg (Catch Me If You Can). I repeat: he aspires to greatness. Has he achieved it? Gangs of New York and The Aviator had an awful lot going for them, but by common consent, neither felt as essential as, say, Raging Bull, or GoodFellas. Both shied away from the darkness lurking within, and while you couldn't fault DiCaprio's performances, especially as Howard Hughes, he didn't seem to have the weight to carry such superstructures on his thin shoulders. 
If he seemed more at home in the Spielberg, that's because it was a lighter piece, a bit of a lark, even. The good news is that our Leo is growing up. I think he's very good in The Departed, especially in his scenes with Vera Farmiga, even if the movie is pulp at heart. And while this week's Blood Diamond is no masterpiece, maybe for the first time DiCaprio looks like a fully-fledged leading man. A man, mind you, not a boy. He's bulked up physically, and he's confident enough to play his amoral South African smuggler as a cynical bastard through and through. Suddenly Leo has traction going for him, as well as his other attractions. You can't earn greatness like a boy-scout badge, but the boy has paid his dues. Tom Charity |
