The Herald Interview

Nov. 13, 2008

There was a time when Leonardo DiCaprio thought this acting lark might not actually work out. It was in the immediate aftermath of Titanic having taken over the world back in 1997, making DiCaprio just about the hottest thing since, well, the last good-looking young man to capture every young teenager's heart.

DiCaprio was at an airport, trying to keep a low profile as he made his way to his flight, when he felt a tugging on his leg. Looking down, he saw a highly emotional young woman with her arms wrapped around said leg. And she wasn't about to let go.

"That was the moment when I thought, 'Okay, this is kinda getting out of hand now'," says DiCaprio today, still damned handsome, if slightly chunkier. Or, is that hunkier? "I never signed up for that kind of fan worship. And neither did Kate Winslet. We were both left pretty much shellshocked when Titanic became this monster..."

The biggest-grossing movie of all time, no less.

"We both got involved because we thought it would be interesting to make a big Hollywood movie," smiles DiCaprio. "We just didn't think it was going to be that big..."

And so, as Leo and Kate kept their heads down in an effort to deal with what the man in front of me jokingly refers to as "the post-Titanic stress syndrome". Their glittering careers had to be put on hold for a little while to let the hysteria settle. When they did gingerly step out in front of the cameras again, tellingly, it was for outings that followed on from their early career paths of small interesting films.

Winslet went off to Morocco to play a hippy mother in Hideous Kinky (1998) and got naughty with a naked Harvey Keitel in Holy Smoke (1999). DiCaprio went medieval in The Man In The Iron Mask and mocked his off-screen, jet-setting, model-banging lifestyle with a cameo in Woody Allen's Celebrity (both 1998).

"Kate and I have just made another movie together, Revolutionary Road," says DiCaprio, "and it was pretty funny, talking about how our careers went through that wibbly-wobbly wonderworld phase with Titanic. It was fun for about a minute. Thankfully though, we both managed to survive it without any real scars.

"I look at Michael Jackson, and how he reacted to Thriller being the biggest-selling album of all time, and I can kinda see how he ended up the way he did. Because he tried to reach that kind of success again and again. It's no wonder he's so out there now."

Kate Winslet isn't the only old friend that DiCaprio has reunited with of late. In next week's Middle East thriller Body Of Lies, Leo stars alongside Russell Crowe once again, the two having made one of their earliest Hollywood outings together 13 years ago, in Sam Raimi's The Quick And The Dead (1995).

In Body Of Lies, DiCaprio plays CIA agent Roger Ferris, on the ground -- in Qatar, Syria, Amman, Baghdad, and beyond -- trying to track down an elusive terrorist kingpin, and finding his already difficult job all the more difficult due to an interfering boss (played by Russell Crowe).

Directed by Ridley Scott, it opened in the US on October 10th and was beaten into third place -- with a so-so weekend take of $12.9 million.

Does that leave DiCaprio disappointed or angry? "I was definitely disappointed, yeah," he nods, "but I can't say I was particularly angry. Or shocked. These films are important to make, and they're important to have out there, so people can have some idea of what's really going on behind the scenes.

"This film will find an audience over the years, and it will become one of those films... people will refer to when it comes to understanding what happened in these difficult times. Maybe, like Vietnam, people just need some time to digest it all.

"And it's going to do better in Europe, especially somewhere like Ireland, where everyone's incredibly smart and only too happy to witness again and again just how dumb America has been over the past five years..."

Has young Leo been back to our green and pleasant shores since he found himself being an impromptu prize alongside Daniel Day-Lewis at a charity auction following the Dublin premiere of Gangs Of New York back in 2003?

"I have not, no, much to my shame . . . It's probably a good thing. I ended up staying in one bar for nine hours last time I was in Ireland..."

Crowe said that hooking up with DiCaprio 13 years after The Quick And The Dead that the only difference was, "now he can drink legally, and he's no longer a virgin". Big changes, then?

"I think Russell might be a little off on his perceptions of me as a young man," laughs DiCaprio. "I think it's obvious I'm still saving myself for the right girl. And the right drink."

With his career having moved up a notch or two in recent years, DiCaprio has managed to leave his teen-sensation years behind him. Was there ever a time when he worried that he might never recover from that post-Titanic stress syndrome?

"I wasn't all that interested in commercial success," he says. "I was more concerned about making films that I believed in, movies that mattered, as that was something I had been doing before Titanic happened. I've been able to choose films that I want to make, and, luckily, people have been going to see them.

"You can never regret making something you're proud of. Whether audiences come out to see it in large numbers or not is really just mathematics after that. I'm just interested in the art."

Body Of Lies hits Irish cinemas November 21st

http://www.herald.ie/entertainment/hq/renaissance-man-1537620.html