Leonardo DiCaprio
Plays Spy Games

“Titanic” (1997) may have defined him for a generation of moviegoers as an iconic blue-eyed pretty boy, but for the past decade Leonardo DiCaprio has leveraged his early success to take on risky roles in sociopolitically informed films that might have marginalized his fan base.

By: Gail Golhen And Karl Rozemeyer*

Instead, with nuanced, well-received performances, DiCaprio has managed to continue to be a box-office draw while tackling issues and projects close to his heart.

With three films in the pipeline for release, the Oscar-nominated actor has been busier than ever. Two upcoming dramas set in the 1950s, Sam Mendes’ “Revolutionary Road” and Martin Scorsese’s “Shutter Island,” are preceded by the current “Body of Lies,” a spy thriller set in the Middle East. The film, based on the novel by Washington Post reporter David Ignatius, reunites actor Russell Crowe with director Ridley Scott, with whom he’d previously made “Gladiator” (2000), “A Good Year” (2006) and “American Gangster” (2007). It’s set in a not-so-distant future in which European cities are plagued by terrorist bombings. DiCaprio plays a CIA operative who is trying to lure a wanted terrorist out of hiding but instead gets caught in a larger game of deceit and subterfuge.

Question: You first worked with Russell Crowe when you where 18, in the Sharon Stone western “The Quick and the Dead” (1995). How was it different this time?
Leonardo DiCaprio: It was a different experience because I think that was, for both of us, our first experience working with a studio film in a big-budget production.
I’m speaking for myself, for sure. I do remember that being the case for Russell, because I remember he had come fresh off “Romper Stomper” (1992) and had been talked about as a phenomenal actor from Australia that was doing incredible work ... I think Sharon Stone had reached her feelers out and saw both of our performances and wanted to work with both of us.
So we were kind of fresh and new to the whole business at that time, and we were kind of wide-eyed and bushy-tailed during that time period. And since then I think we have both established a good resume of work. It was really great to reunite, albeit for only a couple of weeks, a week and a half in Washington and then a little bit of time in Morocco.
I consider him to be one of the most talented actors of his generation, for sure. He’s got an incredible work ethic, and you have to admire somebody who really takes his work that seriously. It is a joy to work with somebody like that, and he has always been a great guy to me.

Q: How would you compare Ridley Scott and Martin Scorsese as directors?
DiCaprio: They are different. Not that Ridley isn’t meticulous with what he does, but Marty is very focused on each camera, at one given moment, capturing certain moments, whereas I think Ridley has a really innate ability to edit in his own mind, simultaneously with five or six cameras, and be able to have that type of focus where he can pop back from camera to camera.
(Ridley) really relies on his instincts, which are phenomenal. He has fantastic instincts when it comes to saying, “OK, I believe what I saw on screen” or “I didn’t,” and will tell you that immediately and make changes immediately. Whereas working with Scorsese is more time-intensive. He really takes his time a lot more with scenes.
Marty is very much about planned shots he has been thinking about for a long period of time, whereas Ridley, I feel, wants to have every possibility on the day available to him to be able to make it up -- not make it up as he goes along, but improvise any given scenario or change things around. He loves his options.

Q: Scott and Crowe had worked together several times previously. What was it like working with them as a team?
DiCaprio: Filled with adrenaline. It is a much different style of filmmaking from what I have been used to.
They are both really unique in the way they work together, and Ridley Scott is a unique director. They kind of mumble a few things together and three scenes are combined into one ... They have such an incredible shorthand, and they kind of instinctively agree on things, and all of a sudden a scene is changed.
They are so sort of instinctually quick about it that you have to embrace that kind of pace, a pace that I am not necessarily used to. But once you get into the mode of that, it is incredibly exhausting, but it is a pace that energizes you. It is a pace that keeps you incredibly on your toes.
And that is what I see in their relationship together. They are all about the business when they show up on the set, and they are all about being completely honest with each other right off the bat, telling each other what they think and making quick decisions. They are both very instinctual that way.
It was kind of a refreshing experience, having come from “Revolutionary Road,” which in its own right was fascinating and interesting, but it was more like a stage play. It was endless talks about two people’s relationships and what they would really be feeling, confined to a small home in the suburbs. And a month later I was out in the middle of Morocco with helicopters shooting missiles at me and giant crews moving from one side of the desert, facing split-second decisions.
So it was jarring but it was interesting.

Q: What attracted you to the project, the character or the movie’s political message?
DiCaprio: I’d say all the things you just said, and that is the truth.
I liked the fact that this was a politically pertinent film for the age we live in, as far as the war on terror, and symbolic in some ways of America’s relationships with other countries and how we are possibly perceived.
And I think, at the same time, it doesn’t take any political side. It presents realities, I think, to an audience and lets the audience extrapolate what they can from the film. Some people might view it as us doing a positive thing, some people might view it as completely negative and boorish, but that is what I liked about the film.
I thought there was a certain level of authenticity there, and it certainly seems as if there are certain parallels to the way the United States is conducting this war. I think there is a lot of reality there. Of course it is a movie and it is a made-up scenario, but all the people involved tried to make the story as authentic as possible.

Q: Did you spend time with real agents, former or current, to help you prepare?
DiCaprio: I had some agents -- not agents, but a former head of the CIA (who) will remain nameless -- who helped me out with a lot of stuff ... And Ignatius is well-versed in his knowledge of undercover ops, and helped me out a lot too, because he spent a lot of time researching this stuff and based a lot of the stuff on real occurrences and real stories that he heard from the Middle East and Jordanian intelligence.
I mean, the guy knows his stuff. He spent years in the Middle East researching this.

Q: What did you learn through the making of this film?
DiCaprio: How incredibly complicated and (in over our heads) we are in this war! (laughs)
What I learned was that, at the end of the day, obtaining information for a war on terror like this is so hands-on and on-the-ground type of an operation that ... You think of the CIA as this uber-strategic force of intelligence out there, but it is all about grasping at straws, trying to find a needle in a haystack -- it is that cliched -- trying to find some tiny bit of information that could lead you to some other bit of information that may never pan out. Or may pan out.
And, I suppose, that is the general idea of how they operate. It just seems impossible to me, and an extremely difficult job.
That is what I learned.

Q: Is it important for you to be part of movies that are creating debate, like “Blood Diamond” (2006) and now “Body of Lies?”
DiCaprio: Yes, in some ways. But a) they are very hard to find, b) that doesn’t mean that they are almost always synonymous with a good story or an entertaining film and c) it doesn’t always mean a director that I would necessarily love to work with is working on it. So it is very difficult to find movies like that.
I love doing movies like this because, obviously, when you are dealing with issues which the world is facing right now and you are dealing with topics that are on people’s minds, it gets you that much more excited about the project and where it comes in historically, how it is somehow a representation of that time period.
I do all kinds of films, but the main criterion is always, “Is it going to be a good movie?” It is very simple. “Is it going to be a good movie that you are going to like to see?” Because, at the end of the day, you could do political film after political film or controversial film after controversial film and, if it is a piece of (garbage), no one watches it. (laughs) And then it is a huge waste of time.
So that is, first and foremost, my criteria for these types of movies. So this was a lucky gift.

Q: Ten years ago you wore the “young heartthrob” label, courtesy of “Titanic.” Was it important to you to make career decisions that would steer you away from that label?
DiCaprio: Although some may not perceive it that way, it has never been a conscious career “steering” in one direction or the other.
It has been that these are the kind of movies that I have always wanted to do, and now I am getting the opportunity to pick and choose films in a way that I don’t think I could have when I was younger. This is really representational of the movies that I have been wanting to do ever since I was 15, 16 years old.
So I guess it is now more of a representation of who I really want to be, as an actor, and the type of films I really want to be a part of.
It is kind of simple: I am a guy, and I like somewhat hardcore movies.

Q: Would you be interested in a play?
DiCaprio: Absolutely. I would really love to do something Off-Broadway one day. I would really love to do an old-school type of throwback play from the ‘50s -- of course, you think of Tennessee Williams.
I would love to, eventually, because I haven’t had a legitimate theater experience yet. It has been this filmmaking roller coaster, which I have loved. I have always kind of set (theater) aside for that point, when there is not an interesting film to do, I am going to seek that out.
Normally I would take five months off to think about everything, but the thing is, scripts came in that were all so good, with such talented directors.

Q: Did it change the way that you performed, having less time to prepare?
DiCaprio: It made me trust myself a lot more. It made me trust my opinions and my thoughts a lot more, because I have an endless process of playing devil’s advocate all the time.
Once I have made a decision, I try to look at it from a different perspective and then look at that from a different perspective, and that can kind of go on and on when you are preparing for things. It does have some benefit too: When it comes to being on set, you have looked at every possible different angle for the character or the way the plot can turn out.
But when you are presented with three really great scripts that really don’t need that much work, then you say to yourself, “OK, it is time to make some very quick character decisions and really just go with it and trust your instinct.”