Leonardo DiCaprio Once Revealed Martin Scorsese Saved His Career
Leonardo DiCaprio was a megastar even before he was a frequent collaborator with Martin Scorsese on his films. Still, the Oscar-winner felt Scorsese played a significant part in saving a career some might’ve considered already successful.
How Martin Scorsese’s relationship with Leonardo DiCaprio started
Scorsese and DiCaprio have been collaborators since working together in the 2002 film Gangs of New York. From there, the pair have done five full-length feature films together. Scorsese’s upcoming thriller Killers of the Flower Moon will be their sixth movie.
Being in a Scorsese movie has been a personal aspiration for DiCaprio ever since watching Scorsese’s 1976 classic Taxi Driver. After getting to know some of Scorsese’s other works, DiCaprio wanted to emulate the type of storytelling he felt the filmmaker accomplish.
“He had a way of immersing you in his filmmaking that just really stood out to me, as a young actor. I remember saying to myself, ‘Someday I want to do something that good.’ I want to be able to be in one scene of his films,” DiCaprio once told Collider.
Scorsese also took an early interest in DiCaprio thanks to Robert De Niro’s recommendation and seeing him in This Boy’s Life.
“We don’t see each other that often. So, for him to recommend somebody, out of the blue, that way to me, during a phone call, was very, very special,” Scorsese said about De Niro.
Scorsese would keep a close eye on DiCaprio’s career from Titanic and beyond. When the opportunity came for them to collaborate in Gangs of New York, Scorsese was thrilled to learn DiCaprio also wanted to work with him.
“That’ s important. It’s great to have an actor who wants to work with you,” the filmmaker added.
Leonardo DiCaprio felt like Martin Scorsese saved his career
DiCaprio reached a level of stardom after starring in Titanic that might have been a bit of a double-edged sword. The film’s success gave DiCaprio the ability to choose to do any film that he wanted. But DiCaprio also felt he limited in the types of roles audiences would believe him in thanks to Titanic.
“It’s a really obvious thing to say, but the more people know too much about who you really are, and it’s a fundamental thing, the more the mystery is taken away from the artist, and the harder it is for people to believe that person in a particular role,” he told The Guardian in 2004.
But since collaborating with Scorsese, DiCaprio was able to show that he was more than a heartthrob. Through Scorsese’s characters and storytelling, DiCaprio found himself playing characters with similar levels of depth as De Niro’s Travis Bickle. Which breathed new life into his career.
“He saved me,” DiCaprio once said according to Deseret News. “I was headed down a path of being one kind of actor, and he helped me become another one. The one I wanted to be.”
Martin Scorsese also felt Leonardo DiCaprio helped his career
Scorsese felt working with DiCaprio revitalized his passion for the film industry. The director admitted that his films weren’t performing up to standards at the time.
“I had made Kundun and Bringing Out the Dead, and both films didn’t do very well at the box office. Things were changing,” Scorsese said.
After teaming up with DiCaprio, however, Scorsese found what his films might have been missing. According to Business Standard, Scorsese credited The Revenant star for bringing back his “movie mojo.”
