Interviews are fairly rare from Leonardo DiCaprio, especially those in which he talks about his life. Sure he will chat with interviewers about his movie, his process and the causes he is passionate about (the environment) but the actor is notably shy with personal details. And who can blame him? After his turn as Jack Dawson in James Cameron’s Titanic, the young actor shot to a level of fame that was incredulous, intense and insane. Looking back, the actor says he was “a real punk” and he had an easier time with women before Titanic fame:
On growing up:
“I was essentially a dwarf with the biggest mouth in the world. I would talk back to anyone and be up for any fight, and when you tell a kid that’s three years older than you to shove it, you’re going to get your ass beat…I was a real punk, there’s no question about it.”
On partying in the pre-TMZ age:
“I got to be wild and nuts, and I didn’t suffer as much as people do now, where they have to play it so safe that they ruin their credibility. I didn’t care what anyone thought…. It was also about avoiding the tornado of chaos, of potential downfall. It was, ‘Wow, how lucky are we to not have hung out with that crowd or done those things?’ My two main competitors in the beginning, the blond-haired kids I went to audition with, one hung himself and the other died of a heroin overdose… . I was never into drugs at all. There aren’t stories of me in a pool of my own vomit in a hotel room on the Hollywood Strip.”
On dating:
“I had better success meeting girls before Titanic. My interactions with them didn’t have all the stigma behind it, not to mention there wasn’t a perception of her talking to me for only one reason.”
The DiCaprio issue of RS is on sale today. His latest flick, Inception, costarring Ellen Page and Joseph Gordon-Levitt, is in theaters now.
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