Читать книгу Leonardo DiCaprio - The Biography - Douglas Wight - Страница 11

As Leonardo and his dad sat in the cinema about to be entertained by a knockabout crime thriller, George turned to his son when the leading man appeared on screen and whispered: ‘See this guy? Now, this guy is cool! His name is Robert De Niro, OK? You remember that name. He’s cool.’

The film was Midnight Run – De Niro’s surprising hit comedy, where his bounty hunter character Jack Walsh tries to bring in fugitive criminal Charles Grodin. It was 1988, but little did young Leonardo know that just three years on from that night, he would be standing in front of the very same Bobby De Niro trying to impress the pants off him.

Leonardo was auditioning for the role of a kid who has been abused by his mum’s volatile boyfriend. This Boy’s Life was based on the memoirs of author Tobias Wolff and he was aiming to land the role of the young Toby. Scots-born director Michael Caton-Jones, whose stock was still rising after the success of his debut movie Scandal (about the Profumo Affair) and modest triumphs with Memphis Belle and Doc Hollywood, was at the helm. But the man Leonardo had to impress was De Niro. Before it was his turn to read, he could tell just how nervous the other wannabes were. Among them was a then-unknown Tobey Maguire. As the tension mounted, DiCaprio knew he must pull something special out of the bag.

‘I just got up and screamed, “Nooooo!” I was right in front of his face and, like, veins pumping,’ he recalled. For a moment De Niro paused and in that brief moment, Leonardo felt his life hang in the balance.

He continues: ‘I’ll never forget his face – he burst into hysterical laughter.’

Of course this wasn’t the reaction he was expecting or hoping for – ‘I thought I had bombed that ship.’ But De Niro, who until that moment had been inclined to go with another boy, was swayed by the newcomer’s courage and passion.

Leonardo passed the first test and what followed was a further round of gruelling interviews and auditions because Caton-Jones wanted to be sure his search for the perfect candidate was as thorough as possible. In the end, DiCaprio beat 400 other hopefuls to the part and was ecstatic on learning he’d been successful: Leo was heading for the big-time.

‘It was simple,’ explains Caton-Jones. ‘I knew he was it, but when someone reads for you that early, you don’t believe it. So we tried loads of young actors, but we came right back to Leonardo.’

Alongside De Niro (who was cast as Dwight Hansen, Tobias Wolff’s brutal stepfather) was smoldering siren Ellen Barkin, playing Leonardo’s mum Caroline, but Caton-Jones was left in no doubt upon whose shoulders the fate of the movie would rest.

‘I have three excellent actors in this film, but Leonardo is the rock that this movie is built on. If people can’t relate to the character of Toby, the story becomes voyeuristic, but Leonardo makes this kid’s struggle something you can connect with immediately.’

With the weight of expectation upon him, Leonardo might have been forgiven for retreating into his shell to summon up the intensity needed to pull off such a demanding part. Yet such was his innate confidence, he took it all in his stride and thrived on the pressure.

At the same time, he was adjusting to life in a new school. He’d only recently moved to a more affluent area of Los Angeles – the money generated from his commercials and television roles meant that he’d earned enough to take his mum out of Echo Park and their $30,000 two-bed shack. In one respect he had achieved his goal – to earn enough to get his mum out of ‘Scumsville’, but poverty was not quite a thing of the past, although he was earning enough to be able to tell his dad that he no longer needed to pay the $20 child maintenance. Leo and Irmelin settled in the hilly neighbourhood of Los Feliz, north of East Hollywood. Although they were away from the slums, they were still in one of the poorest areas of the neighbourhood and the mansions on the hills around them were a constant reminder of how far they needed to climb to be truly affluent.

At 17, Leonardo enrolled at John Marshall High, appropriately a school that had featured in as many films as its new pupil, having provided the set for Grease and A Nightmare on Elm Street. There he fell prey to Hispanic gangs, who picked on him as one of the minority of white students (when first introduced to his new school mates, he was quickly dubbed ‘Leonardo Retardo’). But although he was teased and picked on, it seems his treatment was no worse than normal.

John Marshall High had aspirations beyond simply being a backdrop for teen dramas, however. It held well-run drama classes and naturally, Leonardo signed up. Instantly popular, he was cast as the male lead in the school play. At the same time he was holding down TV show roles.

‘Leo had that star quality you only see once in a lifetime,’ recalls Gerald Winesburg, his school drama teacher, who was certainly impressed.

Leonardo had not long joined the school when he landed the part in This Boy’s Life but by then he had already made an impression on his new classmates.

‘Leo was the virtually the only white guy in the class,’ says pal Pot Ontoun. ‘With his shock of blond hair, he stood out like a sore thumb. We used to call him “Shorty” – he was so scrawny.

‘Once, the teacher asked Leo to read out a romantic speech from Romeo and Juliet. Everyone stopped and listened. By the end, all the girls were staring at him, doe-eyed – while the guys were annoyed that he was attracting so much attention.’

Soon, however, his auditions and TV work were taking so much of his time that Mr Winesburg had to bar Leo for missing rehearsals: ‘Next morning, his mother turned up to talk it through with me. She was clearly a powerhouse, who was determined her only son would succeed.

‘Leo loved the adulation, but he was obnoxious about it. He never got into trouble, though. He had such an enchanting smile and endearing manner, he could charm any teacher.’

Winesburg remembers: ‘Each day, the school newsletter would say: “See our very own Leo DiCaprio in so-and-so!” I knew he was putting those adverts in himself.’ But more than that, the teacher adds, Leo was determined to get himself and his mother out of the ghetto – ‘He had that drive to succeed and I admired him.’

A struggling young actor he might have been, fighting to escape a poverty-stricken childhood, but Leonardo quickly identified the girl he wanted to be his leading lady: high school Homecoming Queen, Jennifer Faus.

Leo pulled out all the stops to charm Jennifer but, incredible as it seems now, given what we know about the actor’s prowess with the opposite sex, she blew his attempts to romance her out of the water.

The teenage Leo thought he’d won her over and ended his run of bad luck with girls when Jennifer let him kiss her – only to be left heartbroken when she turned him down for a date because he was ‘too bigheaded’.

‘Leo and I had the biggest crush on each other,’ recalls Jennifer, who is now happily married and working in a Los Angeles store. ‘People say I was so lucky to kiss the world’s most beautiful man – and I could kick myself now for not saying “yes” to a date with him.’

She met Leonardo when he started at the high school. ‘He was adorable,’ she says. ‘You just wanted to hug him because he was so little. He was so skinny and scrawny that I used to tease him – and hold his hands behind his back.

‘He used to drive this big old Mustang – he was so short that all you could see was his little hands on the steering-wheel.’

Little Leonardo looked to have no chance of winning the prettiest girl in school. But then he suddenly experienced a growth spurt – not to mention a role alongside Robert De Niro – and Jennifer soon began to sit up and take notice.

‘Once we left high school, I started to see how cute he was,’ she explained. ‘At first, we hid our feelings with play-fights – I was always boxing with him. I guess it was just an excuse to touch each other. We would hang out and talk a lot, but there was a sexual tension. I could tell Leo was hiding his real feelings.

‘One of my best friends had dated him, so I asked her if she would mind if anything happened between us. When she said it was fine, I was thrilled.’

When the two had to walk back from a friend’s house in Hollywood, Leonardo made his move.

‘He used to joke about how I should go out with him because one day he would be a celebrity,’ Jennifer says. ‘He was so talented I knew it was true, but I usually just laughed. That night, we both went silent. He turned round, looked at me – and kissed me. I have to say he was a very good kisser, even though he had dated only one other girl.’

But, to Leo’s dismay, Jennifer had second thoughts.

‘He had just landed a part opposite Robert De Niro in his first movie role,’ she continues. ‘Leo had always been a cocky kid and his big-headedness finally put me off. He offered to drive me home and asked me for a date. I was worried he was getting a bit too Hollywood, so I told him, “I think we ought to wait a while.”

‘You could tell from his expression that he expected me to say yes. Then he kind of gave me this look, as if to say, “Hey, I’m going to be famous. Do you know what you’re missing?” But now, Leo has so many girls wanting to date him, I think it’s good for him to have experienced a little rejection!’

To other pupils, Leo was ‘a whirlwind’. School pal Sky Bushy told the Daily Mirror: ‘He was always moving and talking and messing around. He had a real big crush on Jennifer.’

When it came for filming on This Boy’s Life to start, Leonardo put any unrequited teenage crushes to one side and set about producing a performance he would be proud of. As he was to find out, though, the experience of making a film with a screen legend was a real baptism of fire – and unlike anything he’d experienced in acting up until that point. ‘This role was different from any other I had played,’ he says. ‘This was something that was true, that actually happened to this guy. When you are in the moment of a powerful story like that, you just can’t but feel emotionally disrupted.’

And he recalls: ‘When De Niro showed up on the set, it was like the Pope showed up. Everything is on lockdown. “Shh, shh, quiet!”’

As if the hushed reverence wasn’t daunting enough, when it was time for the two to do scenes together, Leonardo found himself totally perplexed when his older co-star and famous improviser strayed from the script. ‘I don’t know what the hell is going on,’ he said, remembering his mind-set back then. ‘If he says something that’s not on the page, do I say, “OK, that was wrong”? “Oh, Bob, you said the wrong line”? See, no, I was supposed to come back and say something – I had no idea how it worked.’

Despite the steep learning curve he was on, Leonardo was able to be himself and enjoyed playing the joker on set and with the rest of the crew. In short, he was a wiseass but rather than antagonise his more illustrious co-stars, this brought them closer together.

‘It was good for the part,’ recalled De Niro, who looked on with amusement, but he did have call to reprimand the young upstart on one occasion, which left Leonardo wondering whether or not the Academy Award winner was joking.

‘I was filming a scene with him where he was trying to impress my mom, played by Ellen Barkin, with a Zippo lighter. Ellen found this so hilarious; the whole set was in hysterics. Towards the twenty-fifth take I was getting a little agitated because I was usually the one getting the laughs. So I stand up and goes, “C’mon guys, can we be a little more professional here? You’re laughing all the time, I have things to do!” I was a bit of a smartass. Bob takes me aside and goes, “You know, there’s a line with jokes and you shouldn’t cross that line because sometimes you can’t get back.”’

But there was no real danger of Leonardo crossing that line. From the moment he saw the legendary Robert De Niro on set, he was bowled over by his professionalism and experience.

‘Earlier, at 14,’ Leo recalls, ‘I was already wanting to be recognised as an adult; when I was doing This Boy’s Life, I wanted to be as old as Robert De Niro and as experienced as him and have the same respect as he did in that movie. I’m just starting to scratch the surface of what really makes me happy.’

During filming – on location in Vancouver, Moab and Salt Lake City in Utah, but mostly in Concrete, Washington (the small Cascade Mountain town, where Wolff grew up, which was transformed to its 1950s appearance) – there was really nothing in Leonardo’s rather meagre body of work to suggest he could pull off a part as demanding as this one. It was the first time he’d tackled a real character and the complexity of Toby Wolff’s relationship with De Niro’s character was nothing he’d ever explored before in any of his lesser roles.

Yet, somehow, with Caton-Jones’ careful direction and De Niro’s stewardship, Leo was able to produce a performance that showed real potential. Indeed, De Niro was suitably impressed to let director Martin Scorsese know that this was a kid to look out for. Leo, meanwhile, credited Caton-Jones for guiding him through every step and paving the way for him to have ‘the ultimate trust in directors, because that’s how I was brought into this movie world, by Michael Caton-Jones literally taking me under his wing.’

He added: ‘Michael Caton-Jones was very much like a father figure to me when I made This Boy’s Life. I didn’t know how to conduct myself on a movie set, I didn’t know what the rules were, I didn’t know what kind of investment you make in a movie.’

The film had a limited release when it reached cinema screens in April 1993 but still managed to go top ten, grossing $5 million at the box office. Although financially a modest success, critically it was much better received, with many reviewers raving about the performance of the previously unknown teenage star.

Bob Strauss, film critic of the LA Daily News, declared it was ‘the profound honesty with which Robert De Niro and young Leonardo DiCaprio inhabit their roles that sells the whole, sadly stirring thing.’ Of newcomer Leo, he added: ‘DiCaprio exhibits an impressive range and an even more impressive sense of proportion. Called upon to be sensitive, smart-mouthed, naive, hurt, angry, cocky and more, he does them all without ever overwhelming the character’s fundamental intelligence. It’s as full and convincing a portrait of rebellious adolescence as the movies have given us.’

After the film was completed, Leo reflected on what he’d achieved with the role. He said: ‘Everything I’ve done before This Boy’s Life is just, I don’t want to say below, but doing This Boy’s Life was such a step up in my career; it was such a difference. It was real acting as opposed to just being cute or whatever.’

His step up was confirmed with his first gong – the New Generation Award from the Los Angeles Film Critics Association.

He celebrated his arrival, after 18 years in Hollywood, by buying himself a $35,000 Jeep Cherokee – ‘It’s kind of rugged and strong and fierce’ – and while he lamented the fact that being a movie star still wasn’t a guarantee he could land himself a girlfriend, he was wary of girls only attracted to him now because of his status.

‘That’s something I have to watch out for,’ he admitted, maybe cynically. ‘Girls who won’t look at me for my personality, but for my pocketbook.’

And, as left school for the last time and perhaps reflecting on his poor run of luck with homecoming queen Jennifer, he said of his time there: ‘I wasn’t exactly the stud. I tried to make girls laugh. They thought I was cute, but nothing serious like Biff, who was wearing the leather jacket.’

One of the key scenes adding to the buzz around DiCaprio on the release of This Boy’s Life was a sensitively handled gay kiss between Toby and his sexually-repressed friend Arthur, played by Jonah Blechman. Caton-Jones praised Leonardo’s courage in handling this potentially tricky scene but its inclusion – and the lack of female interest from the young heartthrob – prompted speculation about his private life that would ultimately plague him for years.

Leonardo would occasionally hit out at the unfounded speculation, saying: ‘I don’t see why I can’t have friends of both sexes without wild rumours being circulated. It’s crazy! If I want to go to a party with a few male friends, it doesn’t mean I’m gay.’

On other occasions he’d dismiss such rumours with the contempt they deserved. When asked what were the worst things he’d heard about himself, he replied: ‘That I’m gay. I heard that I was going out with Ellen Barkin [nearly 20 years his senior]; that I’m an alien. Nothing that odd, I guess.’

Still, at that age, the worst thing that can happen to an up-and-coming actor is not to be talked about and Leo certainly set tongues wagging with his assured ‘debut’ performance. There were whispers about an Oscar nomination but 1993 was blessed with a number of stellar performances from teenage actors, with Anna Paquin’s breathtaking turn in The Piano, while Christina Ricci sparkled in The Addams Family.

He was in exalted company, but Leonardo DiCaprio hadn’t yet finished creating a buzz in that year.