Leonardo DiCaprio

 

10 Facts about his life

1. He started off in television commercials

It’s fair to say that Leo was born to become an actor. He loved imitating people and as a child, he already had the dream of becoming an actor, which appeared to be easier than his second choice, a marine biologist.

DiCaprio’s parents split up when he was just one year old, which caused the young Leo to move around together with his mother frequently around Los Angeles.

Apart from moving, his mother brought her son to auditions in his young teens as well, including for television commercials. He landed his “first role” at age 14 in a commercial for Matchbox cars by Mattel.

Other roles were for Kraft Foods, Apple Jacks, and the one seen below, Bubble Yum (second clip).

2. He was named after a polymath from the Renaissance

On a trip to Italy, Leo’s mother was pregnant and she felt her baby kicking for the first time when visiting the Uffizi Museum in Florence. This happened while she was watching a painting by Leonardo da Vinci. That’s how Leonardo DiCaprio got his name.

While we can’t describe Leo directly as being a polymath, he’s one of the best in his chosen field. Leonardo da Vinci was good in just about any field he showed interest in and naming your baby after such amazing talent is a pretty good idea.

There are only 2 paintings of da Vinci in the Uffizi, so she must have been watching either the “Adoration of the Magi,” a work that da Vinci never completed, or “The Annunciation,” in which an angel named Gabriel mentions to Virgin Mary that she would miraculously give birth to a son.

This isn’t a wild guess and we’re pretty positive she was watching the latter of the two paintings!

3. These are the names he could have   gotten instead

So Leo got his name from his mother because she was watching a painting by Leonardo da Vinci. This could have been multiple other artists with paintings on display in the Uffizi Museum in Florence though.

Some possibilities were:

• Sandro DiCaprio (Sandro Botticelli)
• Raphael DiCaprio (Raphael Sanzio)
• Michelangelo DiCaprio (Michelangelo Buonarroti)
• Rembrandt DiCaprio
• Titian DiCaprio (Tiziano Vecelli)

Let’s just say that Leonardo probably sounds the best of all these choices, isn’t that right?

4. He was advised to change his name

After the initial television commercial roles and a role starring as “Glen” in 2 episodes of the family television program “The New Lassie,” he had some difficulty landing new roles.

Apparently, he did about 100 auditions without landing a single role! It was his father who had to encourage him to keep going because Leo seriously considered quitting acting in the later 1980s because of this. (and thank God he didn’t!)

One of the weirdest facts about Leonardo DiCaprio is that he also had difficulty finding an agent because of his foreign-sounding name. One agent even suggested he change his name to a more American sounding name such as “Lenny Williams,” which ould appeal to the American audience more.

One of the smartest decisions in his life was to refuse this ridiculous offer and continue to go at it until the roles came. This is a similar story as Morgan Freeman, who also got rejected more than he hoped for early on in his career but refused to give up and ended up making loads of amazing movies.

And eventually, the roles came, abundantly!

5. Leo was part of a click that chased girls

The mid-1990s were amazing times for the young Leonardo DiCaprio. He was not famous enough yet to be chased around by cameras everywhere, but he was famous enough to be extremely popular with the opposite sex.

Obviously, his good looks and enigmatic charisma had something to do with that as well…

He also hung out with the most popular group in town which fittingly called itself the “P*ssy Posse.” We don’t believe we need to give an explanation as to ho the group got its name.

Apart from Leo, the group consisted of Tobey Maguire, Lukas Haas, Kevin Connelly, Harmony Korine, and magician David Blaine.

6. Robert de Niro clearly saw his talent

When Leo was auditioning for the 1993 autobiographical movie ‘This Boy’s Life,” he was aiming to get the role of Tobias Wolff, the main character in the movie.

This was a major part because he would be playing the stepson of Robert de Niro and Ellen Barkin as his mother.

The problem? There were about 400 young boys auditioning for this one part!

This must have been one of the biggest boosts in his early career, but it was Robert de Niro himself who handpicked Leo to play the role. An amazing achievement and one of his biggest “victories” as a young actor.

7. The movie that catapulted Leo to stardom grossed $2.1 billion USD

And which movie would that be?

Yes, that’s right, the 1997, $200 million blockbuster Titanic obviously!

It as the most expensive movie ever made at that moment as it cost a whopping $200 million to produce. The result was amazing though as it grossed $2.1 billion in box-office receipts worldwide.

Leo initially wasn’t too sure if he would be able to play the role. It was director James Cameron who had to convince him as he absolutely believed in his acting ability.

On top of that, Leo already had a role that year for the movie “Boogie Nights,” which he subsequently canceled to play the lead together with Kate Winslet in the most epic movie of career at that point.

The movie wasn’t just a major success, it also catapulted Leo into the realm of superstardom, a place he has stayed in ever since.

8. Leo suffers from a very annoying disorder

When he decided to accept to play the role of Howard Hughes in the biopic movie “The Aviator,” (2004) he didn’t just accept it because he liked the script so much. There as a deeper connection with Leo and the main character in the movie.

And it’s not a pleasant one!

Howard Hughes was known to suffer from a severe case of “Obsessive Compulsive Disorder,” a disorder in which the person suffers from an obsession to do irrational things. If you saw this movie, you’ll know how annoying this can actually become if it takes on extreme forms.

Leo once admitted that he suffers from a similar type of disorder. He sometimes feels the urge to walk through a doorway several times or feels it’s needed to step on every gum stain he sees (and no, this doesn’t have anything to do with his commercial for Bubble Yum!)

In Leo’s case, this doesn’t take the extreme form of Howard Hughes though, so there’s no fear that this disorder will drive him into madness one day. he appears to have it under control and he teaches his mind not to fall victim to irrational behavior.

Now that’s a sigh of relief, isn’t it!

9. Leo actually got an award for “Worst Actor”

We can all agree that Leonardo DiCaprio is one of the best actors ever. Just about all of his movies have been a huge success, which remarkably includes a movie that received negative reviews called “The Beach” (2000).

With a filming budget of $50 million USD, it grossed about triple this amount in box-office receipts worldwide, which can be considered a pretty big success.

Critics didn’t feel the same way though. In this movie, Leo played an American backpacker who was looking for an adventurous lifestyle somewhere on a beach in Thailand.

They claimed that Leo “failed to provide the depth needed to make the character believable” and that it was too much of the American Everyman.”

Because of this, he received Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Actor the previous year in 2001.

Oh well, things like that happen!

10. His ultimate recognition came in 2015

As if it as still needed by this time for Leo to be recognized as an amazing actor, he still must have felt pretty good about winning his first Oscar back in 2015.

He finally won for his performance in “The Revenant” in which he portrays the character Hugh Glass, a man living at the frontier back in 1823.

One of the most interesting facts about Leonardo DiCaprio is that he had been nominated for an Academy Award 5 times before actually winning in 2015.

His previous (and one later) nominations, which he all lost, were for his part in these movies:

• What’s Eating Gilbert Grape (1993) – Best Supporting Actor
• The Aviator (2004) – Best Actor
• Blood Diamond (2005) – Best Actor
• The Wolf of Wall Street (2013) – Best Picture / Best Actor
• Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (2019) – Best Actor)

His losing streak remains remarkable and we’ll just assume that he has been unlucky to have been on the opposite end of other amazing performances because in our opinion, he definitely deserved a few more Oscars from this list!