Leonardo DiCaprio: “I want my films to be events”

The Revenant will return this evening on France 3. When it was released in 2016, we met its star.

This interview was published in full in the 468th issue of Première (February 2016), just before Leo received (finally!) the Oscar for best actor. (Click here to subscribe)

When we enter the small lounge on the top floor of the Soho Grand Hotel in New York where we have been arranged to meet, Leonardo DiCaprio is smoking while contemplating the sun falling over Manhattan. He turns around, walks forward, smiling, his eyes vaguely clouded with melancholy (or is he just a little exhausted?). We are convinced that we have already experienced this scene, but where? When ? Oh yes, of course, it comes back to us: replace the electronic cigarette with a cigarette holder and the hoodie with a tuxedo and you are faced with Gatsby. Leo the Magnificent. Princely and friendly. Alone in his kingdom. He slumps on a sofa, asks about the health of the cinema press (“It’s not going very well, is it?”), then we chat about Scorsese, who has just landed in Paris a few hours earlier to inaugurate the big Cinémathèque exhibition. His mannerisms are those of a cool forty-something, well in his time, but something imperceptibly betrays the fact that he lives in another dimension, another space-time.

You’d swear it was floating a few centimeters above the ground. A light veil seems to keep him at a distance from the rest of the world. He’s a star, yes, a real one, old-fashioned, one of those that we can now count on the fingers of one hand (him, Brad Pitt, Tom Cruise, who else ?). Almost twenty years ago, Titanic gave him full powers, he made good use of them. Through effort and perseverance, he finally broke down the resistance and became the actor he dreamed of being – something like Redford and De Niro rolled into one. All the titles in his film testify to the very high idea he has of his profession: only big names on his CV, no blockbusters, no superhero films, no arty twists, no cameos, no joke. Serious.

the Revenant is his latest fantasy, a 2h40 survival where he rolls his eyes furiously in the Great North, a cinema juggernaut with a crazy budget (we’re talking about $135 million) which ended up threatening Star Wars at the box office on the day of its US release. A new stone in Leonardo’s garden, a man who is acutely aware of his power – and how to put it to good use.

The Revenant: all Leonardo DiCaprio’s sacrifices to win the Oscar

First : Since the triumph of Titanic, the principle of your film is clear: only shoot with the greatest active filmmakers. Scorsese, Spielberg, Eastwood, Tarantino, Nolan… Do we agree? Is that the common thread?
Leonardo DiCaprio: Yes. That’s my credo in any case: cinema is the director’s business. A good script is important, but I’ve seen so many excellent stories deliver unwatchable results… I like filmmakers whose name is synonymous with excellence. There aren’t that many of them. If we go to see a Scorsese, it’s because we know that he has a unique voice, a vision of the world that belongs only to him. This is also what I like as a spectator. To immerse myself in an alternative reality, I need to be taken by the hand by someone who I know will offer me something exceptional.

And so, today, you add Inarritu to your hunting list…
In a way he reminds me of Scorsese. He’s an outsider, too. What he does in the Revenant It’s incredible. Look at the battle scene that opens the film: we are with the main character at the same time, we can feel his breath, his sweat, his fear, all in the middle of an immense, ultra-choreographed tumult, with these clusters of Indians who attack their attackers… The movements of all the actors were carefully prepared in advance, a bit like in The Russian Ark. But the result is nevertheless very authentic, almost documentary. It’s like… (he thinks) virtual neo-realism. It’s not a bad formula, right? Maybe I should trademark the term. (Laughs)

There has always been this masochistic dimension in your work, both in the characters you choose to interpret and in the underlying idea that great American films are born in pain. There, on the Revenantyou were served: the freezing temperatures, the filming described by some extras as real hell…
I knew it was a risky undertaking and, in many ways, it was much more difficult than I had imagined. Probably my most hardcore shoot since Titanic. This immense team that we had to lug several hours a day to remote corners, nature which imposed its law… Without Alejandro’s organizational qualities, his rigor, the certainty he had in his vision, we could have found ourselves in a situation Apocalypse Now ! (Laughs) But we got through it. And the difficulties did not prevent a certain lightness. Alejandro and Chivo (cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki) sometimes slipped away into the forest, we found them filming the leaves falling from the trees, or ants walking on a twig…

You have been Howard Hughes, J. Edgar Hoover, Gatsby… Hugh Glass is also an American legend – even if, in France, we barely know him…
Yes, in the United States, it is part of folklore. It’s a camp fire legend, we tell each other about our exploits in the evening by the fire. It embodies the spirit of pioneers, great adventurers, survivalists. But making a film about him is not like telling the story ofAbraham Lincoln or Steve Jobs. We know very little about him, there are almost no documents concerning him, so it allows us to fantasize a little, to approach him in a poetic way.

Do you see any thematic echoes between your roles? There was the famous double Shutter Island – Inception in 2010, these two twin films in the form of mental journeys. Then your film began to resemble a vast reflection on the history of US capitalism, with the degenerate slaver of Django Unchainedthe slim trader of Wolf of Wall Street, Gatsby the magnificent…
Yes, my American dream trilogy…

The Revenant: the true story of Hugh Glass is even crazier than the film

the Revenant would almost be a new chapter…
It’s a little different in my eyes. Django, Gatsby, The wolf of Wall Street were really three films about the American dream, the pursuit of happiness, and the moral corruption engendered by wealth. Hugh Glass is apart. He’s an outsider. He has become closer to the natives, he has a mixed-race son, he is horrified by the violence he witnesses. It’s as if he wanted to disappear, to dissolve into the landscape.

And are these thematic connections conscious? Or do you only do them after the fact?
Let’s say that I am clearly attracted to a certain type of subject. And I’m interested in talking about it. But I prefer to think about it once the films are shot. Now that you point it out to me, for example, I say to myself that perhaps we could indeed include the Revenant in this movement, as if I were going back the thread of American history. There, that’s it, we are at the origins. Across our country, the era of the Revenantit’s almost prehistory.

Most of the films we just mentioned only exist because you star in them. It is your presence that guarantees their existence. Is it difficult to maintain this level of standards? And is it more difficult today than, say, fifteen years ago?
More and more difficult, yes. It’s always a struggle. As you pointed out, I am attracted to this type of film: big-budget arthouse films, made by artists. That doesn’t mean I’m not interested in independent cinema, I’ve done some. But I want the films I make to be events. Once a year, if possible, ring a different bell. Hollywood is in transition. The level of television production has never been higher. We are caught between series, where good stories thrive, and big typical shows transformers Or Star Wars. There are fewer and fewer opportunities for the films I love to make. So when I find one that interests me, I jump on it and never let go.

Trailer for the Revenantby Alejandro Gonzalez Iñárritu:

The Revenant: the incredible making-of of a wild film