Читать книгу Leonardo DiCaprio - The Biography - Douglas Wight - Страница 15

It’s not every 19-year-old boy who has Sharon Stone as his No. 1 cheerleader. And that’s the Sharon Stone, who just two years earlier had caused moviegoers’ jaws to drop in theatres across the globe with her now infamous leg-crossing scene in Basic Instinct (1992). And she was not just cheering from the sidelines, she offered to pay half his salary, even to carry him on her back to the set just to work with him!

Yet that was the crazy situation Leonardo found himself in when Stone started to court him to play alongside her in an unlikely-sounding Western called The Quick and the Dead. Leo’s first, second and third reaction was to reject the offer – ‘I thought it was just going to be a commercial film, Sharon Stone and everything.’ And he added: ‘Commercial films tend to play it safe and are familiar.’

However, as time went on, his refusal to jump into anything suspect, combined with a little misfortune in other roles, meant he was approaching the stage of being out of work for a year since filming wrapped on Gilbert Grape. By then he’d completed high school and was considering his next option. ‘I’m not ready to go to college yet,’ he explained. ‘But if I do anything, it might be taking an acting class. I mean – I’ve never taken an acting class in my life and there are things that might help me with my performances.’

He also reiterated his desire to concentrate solely on worthwhile parts. ‘Anybody can be a star with a little make-up and a music video,’ he continued. ‘I want to do good work in interesting films, with good people. If I set high standards for myself, people will remain interested in my work.’

And he remained confident that he wouldn’t have to chase after adult roles – he wanted to explore more challenging teenage parts: ‘I’m young, young-looking and young at heart – it’s best for me to capitalise on that.’

With this philosophy in mind, his only work during that time was The Foot Shooting Party (1994), an obscure short, where Leo played a rock singer conscripted to fight in the Vietnam War. In the French comedy, DiCaprio’s singer attempts to dodge the draft but when his bandmates gather to shoot him in the foot, they find pulling the trigger is much harder than any of them expected.

For a while it seemed Leonardo’s selection policy might also be: shoot himself in the foot. He turned down a role in Hocus Pocus, the Bette Midler movie, but lost out to Christian Slater when he attempted to fill River Phoenix’s shoes in Interview with the Vampire. And it wouldn’t be the last time his fate was linked to that of the tragic actor.

Eventually, with one day to go before making a decision, he went against his better judgement and signed up with Sharon Stone. Set in the early 20th century, The Quick and the Dead was a tale of revenge centred on a gun-fighting contest in the remote and lawless town of Redemption. DiCaprio was to play ‘The Kid’ – ‘a really insecure kid who puts up this show of bravado to convince people that he isn’t insecure.’

He admits that he finally agreed to it because ‘I hadn’t worked for a year’ and his role ‘is not Billy the Kid, but a really different character. I’m fast and I’m cool – I’m just into my guns.’

Stone was starring as Ellen, a woman who rides into Redemption to settle an old score. An expert shot, she soon finds herself pulled into the high-stakes shooting tournament staged by the town’s kingpin, Herod (Hackman), in which gunslingers put their lives on the line for money and fame.

It was a measure of Sharon Stone’s pulling power at the time that TriStar, who had installed her as co-producer on the project, allowed Stone to call the shots on the film’s director and co-stars.

‘They sent me an approved director list,’ Stone recalls. ‘I sent them back my list. It had one name – Sam Raimi – who at the time was still probably best known for The Evil Dead.’

Raimi was shocked when he got a message that Stone had called. ‘I couldn’t believe it,’ he says. ‘I didn’t believe it. I wanted to call her back and ask if she was sure she got the right guy. But I didn’t – I played along as if she did get the right guy.’

When he was ‘summoned’ to meet Stone at a hotel in Vancouver, British Columbia, Raimi was terrified at the prospect of meeting the sex siren. ‘I felt like Dorothy going to meet the Wizard,’ he reveals. ‘I wasn’t sure what to dress like or whether to put on cologne, I just knew I wanted to act real smart.’

Stone was charmed, however. ‘He walked in with that Beatles’ suit and it was like he was 14 years old,’ she recalls. ‘But his immaturity is his gift – he makes everybody around him act like they’re 14.’

Describing the manic competitiveness dominating the film, Stone added: ‘It’s a comedy, it’s an action-thriller, it’s a cult movie. I call it Twilight Zone: The Western.’

Also joining the cast was an unknown Kiwi actor called Russell Crowe, who originally auditioned for a different role before Stone asked him to try for the lead male. ‘When I saw Romper Stomper [a low-budget Australian film], I thought Russell was not only charismatic, attractive and talented but also fearless,’ she said. ‘And I find fearlessness very attractive – I was convinced I wouldn’t scare him.’

Raimi also found Crowe to be ‘bold and challenging. He reminds me of what we imagine the American cowboy to have been like.’ For his part, Crowe remarked that Raimi was ‘sort of like the fourth Stooge.’

Regarding Leonardo, Crowe remained largely silent until years later, when he had the opportunity to appear once again alongside the actor in Body of Lies (2008). Recalling his previous work with the teenage Leo, Crowe – who by then had cemented his reputation as one of Hollywood’s bad boys – quipped: ‘The last time I worked with him was in a Western called The Quick and the Dead. I tell people he was 12, but actually, I think he was 18. Miss Sharon Stone was the big star, so people kept asking who we were.’

Back in 1994, Stone was indeed the star and her imprint was certainly all over this movie. Describing her work in packaging the film, she painted herself as a fast-draw producer: ‘Normally, I’m patient, but sometimes when time’s running short I get aggressive,’ she admitted. ‘I was aggressive in making sure we did our best to get Gene Hackman. They had me and they had to pay me, and they weren’t keen on paying anyone else.’

This was also true when it came to securing Leonardo’s services. Stone was adamant she wanted Hollywood’s hottest young talent but movie bosses were reluctant to fund her choice. Out of desperation she offered to pay half his salary from her own pocket.

‘I wanted him bad and we’d topped out financially,’ she explained before adding, ‘He’s so good, I would have carried the boy on my back to the set if that was necessary! He will be one of the finest actors we have seen in decades. His talent, his gift, is so extraordinary.’

Despite his playing-hard-to-get act, Leo was also apparently nervous about coming face-to-face with his blonde bombshell co-producer. He joined up with the cast and crew in Mescal, Arizona, where shooting was already taking place in the Western set built for Lee Marvin’s 1970 flick, Monte Walsh (and subsequently used in over 50 other films).

Pals of Leo’s reveal the flustered teenager fumbled his lines time and again when Stone first came on set. One said: ‘Leo admitted to me he’d been heavily attracted to her. He reckoned she played along with it by flirting with him whenever they were in a scene together.’

The star told his friend: ‘I couldn’t stop thinking about her. It was really weird because she was nearly old enough to be my mum. I think she’s really cool. She let me think we could be real good friends. She was brilliant.’

Publicly, though, he told a different story. ‘I expected her to be this big sex vixen, seducing everyone,’ he said. ‘But she was sweet.’

Kissing his co-star, however, was another matter. He revealed: ‘To tell you the truth, it wasn’t that great. She grabbed me by the back of my hair and pushed her lips on mine and then threw my head away. It didn’t feel like a real kiss.’

Indeed he was more enamoured with the guns that he got to use during filming for the producers provided him with antique Colt pistols. ‘It’s very bad,’ he noted, ‘very bad, if I drop one of them.’

Not all the cast were equipped with the original guns, though. Thell Reed was the man hired as gun coach and weapons master to the stars and worked with the cast through three months of training. He also had to age Crowe’s Colt 1851 Navy Revolver and the other guns used to make them look authentic and employed a rather basic trick. ‘I took them out by my swimming pool and dipped them in chlorine water to let them rust,’ he explained. ‘They looked rusty and old, but were brand new guns.’ Such detail, including the nickel plating and ivory handles on Ellen’s Colt Peacemakers, was accurate to the time period.

When Stone finally got to see the young Leonardo up close she was suitably impressed, describing him as ‘the most gifted young actor I have ever seen – richly, deeply, profoundly eloquent in his emotional accessibility and delivery.’

Sam Raimi was also quick to lavish praise on Leo’s shoulders. ‘He is the finest actor of his generation,’ he gushed.

One scene that did stretch Leonardo’s talents was his first death scene. The poignant moment came when he died at the hands of Hackman’s Herod – the one man whose approval he would do anything to win. Dying on screen was a new concept for DiCaprio but it was to become something for which he’d grow rather famous.

As filming went on, Stone had her more than enough troubles to deal with. Several times the production had to be halted because of bad weather. Then, from the very first showing of dailies – the raw, unedited footage – some TriStar executives expressed displeasure at seeing Stone in a man’s role. Instead they preferred her to dress in a traditional style, more befitting women of the age.

‘Some people who shall remain nameless wanted me to wear a dress to ride into town,’ Stone recalled. ‘I thought, “Oh yeah, the gunslinger’s gonna ride into town sidesaddle!”’ Though she might have joked later on, the suggestion made her ‘just so darn mad!’ And she added: ‘There were some people who shall also remain nameless, who were concerned that there really weren’t a lot of places for me to be naked in this movie. But there are a lot of ways to be sexy other than flouncing around in your birthday suit. This character’s not trying to run around in the nude so she can get control over somebody.’

As if that wasn’t bad enough, when filming finally wrapped she was hit with the news that TriStar had decided to delay its release from summer or autumn 1994 until the following year. The studio had concerns over the over-saturation of Westerns, as well as the overexposure of Stone and co-star Hackman. Certainly, there had been a glut of Westerns in the preceding years, including Tombstone, Bad Girls, Maverick and Wyatt Earp.

TriStar President Marc Platt said that a late September or early October release had only been tentatively planned at the beginning of the year, while his preference was to release it in the March. ‘It was the filmmakers who really wanted the film out in the summer,’ he explained.

The filmmakers, however, had no choice other than to bow to the studio’s will. ‘I’ve had pictures come out in the wrong time slot before, so I know the price,’ said Raimi’s producing partner, Rob Tapert. ‘I’m sure TriStar knows best.’

Tombstone, Kevin Costner’s epic on the gunfight at the OK Corral, particularly concerned the studio, who feared the three-hour length feature would cause box-office takings to drop and sour moviegoers on Westerns for some time to come. This aside, there was also the issue that Gene Hackman featured in too many of the genre. Indeed, the French Connection star played Wyatt Earp’s father in the Costner movie and also starred in the studio’s Unforgiven.

Meanwhile, Stone herself was suffering something of a credibility crisis around the time the movie had originally been slated for release. One source on the project said: ‘Her last two movies [Sliver and Intersection] haven’t performed well. The word is TriStar wanted to wait and see how The Specialist [an action film pairing Stone with Sylvester Stallone] will do. If it does well, TriStar is hoping the success will bleed over for Sharon into this picture.’

Even before the movie was released, Stone was still not happy. She demanded a love scene be cut before distribution because she felt it wasn’t in keeping with the rest of the tone. A second smooch with Leo was also left on the cuttings floor.

Eventually the film hit cinema screens in February 1995 and although it took over $6.5 million on the opening weekend and over $18 million overall – considerably more than any of Leonardo’s previous movies – it was branded a flop. Raimi blamed himself for the poor showing, saying: ‘I was very confused after I made that movie. For a number of years I thought, “I’m like a dinosaur. I couldn’t change with the material.”’

Reviews on the whole were mixed but some did not hold back in their criticism. Associated Press described The Quick and the Dead as ‘an amazingly bad movie – so bad that not even the extremely talented Gene Hackman can save it.’ Of Leonardo, it said: ‘DiCaprio, a talented newcomer with much promise, seems lost in the role of the Kid and plays it like he’s seen too many Bonanza reruns.’

Jay Boyar, film critic on the Orlando Sentinel, also savaged the movie, saying it was ‘the first jaw-droppingly-awful movie of 1995.’ Sparing none of the actors, he added: ‘No one in Q&D gets very much acting done. Attempting to ape Eastwood, Stone turns into the Woman With No Personality. Hackman resurrects his little Lex Luthor laugh, a sign that he may consider the entire project beneath contempt.’

He did, however, reserve some sympathy for Leo: ‘I think I felt sorriest for Leonardo DiCaprio, who follows up his brilliant work in What’s Eating Gilbert Grape with the role of the Kid in this godawful mess.’

Among those with kinder words was the Boston Globe, who described describing the film as ‘a sly, savvy Hollywood send-up of Sergio Leone Westerns [Spaghetti Westerns].’

And the pitfalls of doing a more commercial film – despite its relatively poor box-office showing – became increasingly apparent when Leonardo felt even more of his private life being eroded in the wake of the publicity surrounding him. Already he was lamenting the limitations that his sudden fame put on his life. Journalists began quizzing not only the actor himself, but his family and friends, old school pals and neighbours, in trying to track down his former loves and scandals. As would soon become customary with his leading ladies, he was linked to Sharon Stone.

There seemed little truth in the rumours, but more substance appeared to exist in reports that he was interested in a hot young model called Bridget Hall. The 5ft 10.5in Texan was the most in-demand cover girl during New York Fashion Week in April 1995 and had clearly caught Leo’s eye.

‘We’re just hanging out,’ she muttered coyly of their relationship, although she blushed as she said it. Despite her picture being on the front of all of the leading glossy magazines, she revealed Leo didn’t even recognise her when they first met because ‘I don’t look like my Guess pictures.’

That the press were interested in who Leo was dating was an indication of how his star was on the ascent. Reports also suggested that he had a soft spot for Alicia Silverstone, at the time the most talked-about young actress in Hollywood, with some even claiming they were engaged. Two years younger, Alicia had burst onto the scene with a stunningly knowing performance in Clueless (1995). Unlike Leo, however, she had accepted a part in a superhero franchise – appearing as Batgirl in Batman & Robin. The link and friendship were genuine, the romance it appears not.

‘Alicia and I did our first movies at about the same time,’ Leo explained. ‘We’ve known each other for years. I’m sure she was asked this question [about them being engaged] and she thought it ridiculous.’

In addition to the speculation about his love life, fans routinely pestered him and while he never publicly objected to the attention, the constant interest was clearly getting to him.

He said: ‘I want to be a jerk like the rest of my friends, and have fun and not care about the consequences, but I can’t now.’

Leonardo, it seemed, was right in his early suspicions that this latest work might not be best for his career development. Whereas he had been lavish in praise of his most recent films, he was quick to distance himself from this turkey. ‘It’s not my favourite film in the world,’ he admitted. ‘I guess it was not that good. It was alright, you know. I had a good time doing the character.’

Luckily for Leo, he had another project released hot on the heels of The Quick and the Dead, one that would restore any lasting damage to his reputation as a serious actor.