Leonardo DiCaprio has made a career out of being selective with his projects, making a point to collaborate with the finest directors working today. This strategy has seen him take on a number of compelling roles, be it Rick Dalton in Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, Frank Abagnale Jr. in Steven Spielberg’s Catch Me If You Can, and Hugh Glass in Alejandro G. Iñarfítu’s The Revenant. DiCaprio is arguably most famous for his working relationship with the great Martin Scorsese, as the two have made six films together. And one of those projects still sticks in DiCaprio’s mind as a touchstone moment.
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Speaking with ComicBook while promoting his new film One Battle After Another (in theaters September 26th), DiCaprio shared that Howard Hughes in The Aviator is the one role that’s stuck with him the most. “It was the first film for me that I’d been thinking about for a long period of time and held that book around about Howard Hughes for like 10 years,” he said. “And then I think I was around 30 years old and I got to do that movie with Scorsese and recreate I was a producer, so to speak, so I felt this whole other responsibility … that was a seminal point in my life, so I suppose it was The Aviator. That character has stuck with me, not in his eccentricities, but just the thought that went into that character.”
The Aviator Was An Important Film In Leonardo DiCaprio’s Career
The Aviator may not necessarily be the first film that comes to mind when thinking about DiCaprio. It wasn’t a major box office hit a la Titanic or Inception, and it fell short of winning key awards during that Oscars season (unlike the next DiCaprio/Scorsese collaboration, The Departed). Still, The Aviator was a watershed moment for DiCaprio’s career in Hollywood. The film was still widely acclaimed, receiving 11 Oscar nominations. Among those was a nod for DiCaprio in Best Actor. It was his first Academy Award nomination after breaking into the mainstream; his first career nomination came for 1993’s What’s Eating Gilbert Grape when he was just 19.
Following the record-breaking success of Titanic, DiCaprio had something of a heartthrob image, and headlining an epic biopic like The Aviator was a significant change of pace. Though DiCaprio had previously starred in Scorsese’s Gangs of New York, The Aviator was arguably when the film community started taking him seriously as an actor. DiCaprio demonstrated impeccable range in his performance as Howard Hughes, bringing a fascinating and complex figure to life. It was a character that established the type of actor DiCaprio was going to become.
It’s easy to see why The Aviator means so much to DiCaprio. It’s clear he was very passionate about the material; that he held onto the book for so long and put a ton of thought into how to play the character shows how committed he was to doing the part justice. That serious approach has informed DiCaprio’s style in the decades that followed. Whether he’s playing a despicable villain like Calvin Candie in Django Unchained or a man desperate to get home to his kids like Cobb in Inception, he brings the same level of dedication. Working on The Aviator at an early point in his career was a valuable experience, underscoring the work ethic that’s necessary to be one of the greats.
Whenever DiCaprio headlines a new movie, audiences expect it to be high quality. One Battle After Another is the latest example of that, as it’s already earning rave reactions and Oscar buzz ahead of its theatrical premiere later this month. Titanic made DiCaprio a star and earned several accolades in its own right (including a Best Picture win), but The Aviator was when DiCaprio truly made a leap and showcased that he had immense talent. Wherever his career goes from here, he’ll be keeping the lessons learned from The Aviator in mind.
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