For the movie after the all-time blockbuster ‘Titanic,’ Leonardo DiCaprio jumped back into the ocean.
This time, he wanted to.
‘I want to try everything,’ says DiCaprio, who stars in ‘The Beach,’ which opens Friday.
The movie is viewed by some as a nonmainstream departure for DiCaprio. But the 25-year-old heartthrob says it’s a return to form.
‘Before ‘Titanic,’ I did do small films because that was really what was available to me,’ DiCaprio says.
With great hair, the face of James Dean profile and with Jack Nicholson’s naughty boy grin, the 6-foot-tall DiCaprio is a respected actor — perhaps in spite of being named one of People magazine’s 50 most beautiful people in the world (1998, ’97).
DiCaprio received an Academy Award nomination, won a Golden Globe and a National Board of Review best supporting actor award for ‘What’s Eating Gilbert Grape’ (’93). He also won the Board of Review’s best supporting actor award for ‘This Boy’s Life’ (’93).
‘ ‘Titanic’ was actually a break from the norm for me,’ says DiCaprio, who played the tragic Jack Dawson in the ’97 release.
‘This (‘The Beach’ ) is definitely getting back to before that (‘Titanic’ ),’ says DiCaprio, an actor since he was 14.
His films include ‘William Shakespeare’s Romeo Juliet’ (’96), ‘The Basketball Diaries’ (’95) and ‘Total Eclipse’ (’95).
‘I’m young in the sense that I’m still experimenting,’ DiCaprio reflects. ‘In whatever genre of film it is, I don’t want to get stuck into a sort of mold. I want to diversify myself as an actor. I want to try as many different characters and styles of film-making as I can. That’s what it’s about for me.’
‘The Beach’ is about a New-Age paradise lost. A group of global wanderers have set up a secret commune on a South Seas island where they live on love, labor and hemp. The movie is based on the 1996 book by Alex Garland.
DiCaprio is Richard, a young American backpacker who receives a map from a former island resident (Robert Carlyle). Richard travels to the remote island with a French couple (Guillaume Canet and Virginie Ledoyen).
After ‘Titanic,’ the word around Hollywood studios was that DiCaprio was turning down everything he received. Industry insiders say you can determine which scripts DiCaprio rejected by noting which recent releases have starred Matt Damon and Ben Affleck, two other hot young actors.
Whatever movie DiCaprio did as his followup to ‘Titanic’ would be big news. He even made news for the movies he didn’t make.
DiCaprio denies he had agreed to star in the movie of Bret Easton Ellis’ controversial book, ‘American Psycho,’ which unreeled at last month’s Sundance film festival and stars Christian Bale.
‘I read the script and sort of expressed interest in it,’ says DiCaprio. ‘During that whole hot air balloon of ‘Titanic’ media, it became something bigger than what it was. Actors do that all the time. They say, ‘I like this script.’
‘Eventually, I realized it (‘American Psycho’ ) didn’t amount to anything and didn’t mean anything in the end,’ says DiCaprio with a laugh.
‘After ‘Titanic,’ I really wanted to take my time and really read through everything and say, ‘OK, I don’t really want to do something that other people tell me is genius. I want to find something that strikes a chord in me.’ ‘
‘The Beach’ is from the same team (director Danny Boyle, screenwriter John Hodge and producer Andrew Macdonald) that did ‘Shallow Grave,’ ‘Trainspotting’ and ‘A Life Less Ordinary.’
‘Danny (Boyle ) came along and he wanted to bring me in as a partner on this film,’ explains DiCaprio. ‘He wanted it to be a collaborative sort of effort. He didn’t want me to be an actor for hire.’
Of the story line, DiCaprio enthuses, ‘I loved what it said.’
And just what did the script say when DiCaprio hit ‘The Beach’?
‘Without speaking for my generation, it talks about how we’ve been sort of so desensitized in a lot of ways and how we’re so influenced by the media. And everything is nowadays seeming more and more prepackaged and predigested and pre-thought-out for us.
‘This character (Richard ) goes in search of something real and something tangible — real emotion or real experience — that he can connect with. He goes traveling to Thailand.
‘He ends up finding this pirate-like utopia which seems to be the answer to all his problems and all his prayers. And, in the end, eventually he realizes that paradise is essentially a false concept — that there is nothing out there that will answer all your problems.’
DiCaprio admired Richard because ‘I probably wouldn’t be as courageous as he would be.’
‘The Beach’ was filmed on Phi Phi Le, a small island off Phuket, Thailand.
In one of the movie’s more unusual scenes, DiCaprio is transformed into a video game character running through the jungle.
‘It was actually one of my ideas — the video-game sequence,’ says DiCaprio.
‘I thought it would be a perfect idea to get into Richard’s fascination with isolation, and being out in the wilderness — this ‘Rambo’-esque sort of character. I knew Danny (Boyle ) was so open to surreal sequences to tell you more about the character and the story.’
Like other Generation X-ers, DiCaprio is a self-described ‘video-game freak.’
‘I’ve had every video system there is. I am a product of that generation. I think it’s a trap. Once you get involved with something like that it is truly hard to escape it. And it does envelope you.
‘I go through periods of a year when I don’t play any video games. But once I get into it again, it becomes like this drug in a weird way.’
Because ‘Titanic’ grossed $1.8 billion at the box office worldwide and $600 million in the United States, DiCaprio is one of the world’s most famous actors.
‘Life is a lot more hectic than it used to be,’ DiCaprio admits. ‘I have a lot more responsibility, you know, careerwise — all the little facets and what comes along with that –protecting this, protecting that, whatever,’ he laughs.
‘Essentially, I’ve been given a fantastic opportunity to do what I love and create as an actor and given more opportunities than ever before because of ‘Titanic.’ I wouldn’t give it up for the world.’
This has led to opportunities to work with the cinema’s top directors. Next up for DiCaprio: ‘Gangs of New York,” directed by Martin Scorsese.
Though he’s talked with director George Lucas about ‘Star Wars: Episode 2,’ set to film this summer in Australia, DiCaprio cautions, ‘There’s no script yet. I’ll see when I read the script.’
While ‘Titanic’ has boosted his career (his payday increased from $2.5 million for that film to $20 million for ‘The Beach’), DiCaprio puts the hype in perspective. ‘I laugh about it a lot. And, thank God, I have my friends to keep me grounded.’
Wearing a hat and sunglasses to dodge fans in public helps, too.
But what about those tabloid reports? The Feb. 1 Star has a cover story about DiCaprio’s alleged out-of-control New Year’s Eve bash in Hollywood. And he’s on the cover of February’s Talk, which trumpets DiCaprio’s ‘first interview since the ship sank.’
Reports DiCaprio: ‘I have found that 90 percent of what I’ve read about me have all been a mutated version of reality and have been unbelievably blown out of proportion.’
He’s no poster boy for fame, he says, insisting his ‘Titanic’ popularity has cooled: ‘It has. It really has, actually.
‘I’m probably just as recognizable. But the sort of fever that came after ‘Titanic,’ which I had no control over and really no involvement with … ,’ he pauses, laughing.
‘It wasn’t me. You know what I mean? I knew after ‘Titanic’ faded down, that would fade down, too.’
Paul Willistein is Arts Editor of The Morning Call. E-mail: paul.willistein@mcall.com
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