{"id":354127,"date":"2025-12-17T15:17:08","date_gmt":"2025-12-17T15:17:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/354127\/"},"modified":"2025-12-17T15:17:08","modified_gmt":"2025-12-17T15:17:08","slug":"leonardo-dicaprio-jennifer-lawrence-on-titanic-scorsese-and-more","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/354127\/","title":{"rendered":"Leonardo DiCaprio, Jennifer Lawrence on ‘Titanic,’ Scorsese and More"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tThis is it. The grand finale to our most compelling Actors on Actors lineup ever. Jennifer Lawrence<\/a> and Leonardo DiCaprio<\/a> are arguably the biggest stars in the world, both Oscar winners whose creative choices are watched as closely as their red-carpet looks. DiCaprio comes to the table as the head of a stacked ensemble cast in \u201cOne Battle After Another,\u201d Paul Thomas Anderson\u2019s action opus for thinkers. Lawrence delivers one of her most visceral and unforgettable leading performances as a new mother whose reality dissolves under the weight of postpartum depression in Lynne Ramsay\u2019s \u201cDie My Love.\u201d Here, the former co-stars discuss life as kids on sitcoms, on-set etiquette and their upcoming gig with Martin Scorsese. <\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tAlexi Lubomirski for Variety<\/p>\n

\n\tLeonardo DiCaprio: Where did we meet?<\/p>\n

Jennifer Lawrence: I don\u2019t remember meeting you. Somewhere in the Valley.<\/p>\n

DiCaprio: Not the Valley.<\/p>\n

Lawrence: The Hills. \u201cOne Battle After Another\u201d is my favorite movie I\u2019ve ever seen in my life.<\/p>\n

DiCaprio: Oh, stop.<\/p>\n

\n\tLawrence: You\u2019re a really great actor and this was the greatest performance I\u2019ve ever seen. What struck me, because I know you, is that this character Bob was the rawest I\u2019ve ever seen you \u2013 but also really warm. It reminded me of your parents and their values. I know they were very counterculture. Was Bob built from you or did PTA just hand you a warm, amazing guy?<\/p>\n

DiCaprio: This was personal for Paul. He\u2019d been writing it for 15-20 years. It\u2019s very pertinent to today. It was based on \u201cVineland,\u201d but he made his own rendition. The idea of a guy who was a revolutionary trying to assimilate himself in the modern world, with a daughter that he didn\u2019t connect to, giving up on life was something that had been permeating in his mind for a long time. As far as the counterculture stuff, yeah. My parents are different though. My dad hung around with Abbie Hoffman a bit back in the day. They were definitely hippies, but [my film] has much more hardcore revolutionaries that did much crazier stuff.<\/p>\n

\n\tLawrence: I think your dad was also a bomb maker. Were you aware of the comedy?\u00a0 I think the funniest people are an Alec Baldwin type who does it as serious as a heart attack. I can\u2019t do that. When I was doing \u201cNo Hard Feelings,\u201d I was too aware of the jokes and I was like, \u201cYay! A joke\u2019s coming up!\u201d Were you aware that you were being funny?<\/p>\n

DiCaprio: It was the circumstances. I mean, the fact that you think I\u2019m going to be able to utilize all the skills from my past as a revolutionary, but Bob is too stoned to get off the couch. Each time we got to these moments where maybe my character was going to do something heroic, we throw it out the window. Up to the final moment in the movie, where we still thought I was going to do something heroic, but, nah. He doesn\u2019t do it.<\/p>\n

Lawrence: Benicio del Toro\u2019s character also never really got his moment after all his work, like where he rides off into the sunset. Your chemistry [with Benicio] is amazing. Have you ever kissed?<\/p>\n

\n\tDiCaprio: [Laughs]. He was actually doing \u201cThe Phoenician Scheme,\u201d and we waited for him. Shut down production for three months, and then he was like, \u201cI\u2019m not prepared for this.\u201d But he came in and knew exactly who his character was, and we changed the whole movie when he arrived. All the stuff we did on the road together was because Benicio was like, \u201cThis is who Sensei is.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tLawrence: Do you watch playback?<\/p>\n

DiCaprio: Depends on the movie.<\/p>\n

Lawrence: Did you watch playback on \u201cOne Battle\u201d?<\/p>\n

DiCaprio: No. Tell me about \u201cDie My Love.\u201d It reminded me of the French New Wave. I thought immediately of \u201cA Woman Under the Influence,\u201d which is one of my favorite performances and one of my favorite movies. You were fantastic in it. Why did you want this part?<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tAlexi Lubomirski for Variety<\/p>\n

\n\tLawrence: Thanks. Martin Scorsese had read the book in his book club and he was like, \u201cYou should make this into a movie and star in it.\u201d And then when I was reading it, I really couldn\u2019t understand how it would be a movie. I felt like the author, Ariana Harwicz, was able to describe the indescribable grave depression of an identity crisis, but really poetically being lost in a forest and these visuals and metaphors. I couldn\u2019t crack how to make it a movie, and I didn\u2019t want to go back to Marty and be like, \u201cI don\u2019t get it, try someone else.\u201d I think I realized that it\u2019s poetry, it\u2019s not a literal story. Then it clicked that Lynne Ramsey would be the only [director for this]. I think she\u2019s a poet.<\/p>\n

DiCaprio: What stuff was in the book versus the movie?<\/p>\n

Lawrence: Lynne changed a lot. She made the lead couple be new to town, which they\u2019re not in the book. That adds a huge element to my character\u2019s depression. She\u2019s pacing like a tiger in a cage, and that added a lot more of the isolation that I think a lot of new parents have. Like, what is my life now?<\/p>\n

DiCaprio: A lot of the tension for me was wondering what\u2019s going to happen to your character\u2019s baby.<\/p>\n

Lawrence: I know!<\/p>\n

DiCaprio: Your character is unraveled and capable of anything, it got me on edge.<\/p>\n

Lawrence: I really loved seeing you be a dad in \u201cOne Battle After Another.\u201d \u00a0The child in our movie is not well taken care of, and Rob and I are both parents in real life. Rob had a newborn, and we just could not play characters like that. It changed. Societal understanding of postpartum is very simplistic, it\u2019s \u201cYou don\u2019t connect with your child.\u201d But that\u2019s one version of it. Another is that your marriage can erode because your dynamic is completely different.<\/p>\n

DiCaprio: We dealt with a lot of that with Teyana Taylor\u2019s character in our movie. It was hinted at in the script, this idea of me loving our baby more than her. Her being jealous of the baby. We both started out in this business very young. How old were you when you started auditioning?<\/p>\n

Lawrence: About 14, in New York.<\/p>\n

DiCaprio: I was 12. And you did a lot of commercials before \u201cWinter\u2019s Bone\u201d?<\/p>\n

Lawrence: Yes. And we were both on sitcoms.<\/p>\n

DiCaprio: What was your sitcom, again?<\/p>\n

Lawrence: Well, yours was \u201cGrowing Pains,\u201d which I watched every day after school. Mine was \u201cThe Bill Engvall Show,\u201d which I don\u2019t think anybody has ever seen except me and my parents.<\/p>\n

DiCaprio: How long were you in it?<\/p>\n

Lawrence: Two years. After I wrapped \u201cWinter\u2019s Bone,\u201d the show got cancelled. It worked perfectly.<\/p>\n

DiCaprio: I did one year on \u201cGrowing Pains,\u201d then I got the movie \u201cThis Boy\u2019s Life,\u201d which was my first starring role. They were so incredibly awesome to me because I think that we were going to do another year on \u201cGrowing Pains,\u201d and the late great Alan Thicke and everyone got together and said, \u201cLet the kid go do this.\u201d It was a really an amazing moment.<\/p>\n

Lawrence: They\u2019re not normally nice like that.<\/p>\n

DiCaprio: What was your first commercial?<\/p>\n

Lawrence: I did an MTV promo for my \u201cSuper Sweet 16.\u201d I\u2019m being carried on a chaise lounge and then they drop me.<\/p>\n

DiCaprio: But you were in the show?<\/p>\n

Lawrence: No, I didn\u2019t have the money. It was a promo for the show, playing a fictional rich girl having an over-the-top birthday party.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tAlexi Lubomirski for Variety<\/p>\n

\n\tDiCaprio: I think a lot of my propulsion to want to act as a kid was to get out of my neighborhood. My stepbrother did a lot of commercials. He was like, \u201cWait a minute, you can get paid to do that? I got to get out of this place.\u201d I was [our] stage mom, pushing my parents to take me on auditions. I told them, \u201cThis is going to be my college fund to get me money to try to have some sort of career in something.\u201d I didn\u2019t book anything for a while. I got a Matchbox car commercial where I played a gangster with slicked back hair. I had a briefcase and I opened it up.<\/p>\n

Lawrence: Did you go to the audition looking like a gangster?<\/p>\n

DiCaprio: Yes. I slicked back my hair and I put a little leather jacket on. I booked \u201cMickey\u2019s Safety Club,\u201d too. An after-school special thing where you teach kids the dangers of drugs \u00a0My first television show was \u201cThe Outsiders.\u201d There\u2019s my whole filmography.<\/p>\n

Lawrence: That brings me to one of my questions. PTA was your white whale for a while after [you didn\u2019t do] \u201cBoogie Nights.\u201d Who is your white whale now?<\/p>\n

DiCaprio: There\u2019s a lot of great directors out there. Damien Chazelle is very talented. Michael Mann\u2019s amazing, I\u2019ve always wanted to work with him. I don\u2019t have one specifically, Paul was always somebody generationally that I really looked up to. We almost did \u201cBoogie Nights\u201d together, and then I got to watch his entire career progress over the last 25 years and see this incredible visionary.<\/p>\n

Lawrence: Did you pass on \u201cBoogie Nights\u201d?<\/p>\n

DiCaprio: It was a hybrid of that. \u201cTitanic\u201d and \u201cBoogie Nights\u201d kind of overlapped in production. Maybe it could have worked out.<\/p>\n

Lawrence: Have you rewatched \u201cTitanic\u201d?<\/p>\n

DiCaprio: No. I haven\u2019t seen it before.<\/p>\n

Lawrence: Oh, you should. I bet you could watch it now, it\u2019s so good.<\/p>\n

DiCaprio: I don\u2019t really watch my films, do you?<\/p>\n

Lawrence: No. I\u2019ve never made something like \u201cTitanic,\u201d if I did I would watch it. Once I was really drunk, I put on \u201cAmerican Hustle.\u201d I was like, \u201cI wonder if I\u2019m good at acting?\u201d I put it on, and I don\u2019t remember what the answer is.<\/p>\n

DiCaprio: I wanted to ask about David O. Russell. You\u2019ve worked on so many films, like \u201cSilver Linings Playbook.\u201d What do you feel he brought out in you?<\/p>\n

Lawrence: He taught me how to act, really. I want to be sensitive to the other actors who\u2019ve worked with him. I know he\u2019s tough. He can be really, really hard on people. For me, I don\u2019t know if it was because I grew up doing sports, and so I felt like he was just a stern coach. \u201cDo it loud,\u201d \u201cDo it quieter,\u201d \u201cThat was bullshit,\u201d \u201cThat was bad,\u201d \u201cDo it better.\u201d He was very straightforward with me. I was 21 when I did \u201cSilver Linings\u201d and it felt alive. I never felt like he was yelling at me. I really don\u2019t like being tiptoed around, like I\u2019m an emotional landmine. I hate that.<\/p>\n

DiCaprio: Did you have that dynamic [with Lynne], too?<\/p>\n

Lawrence: She was hands-off by the time we started shooting. She builds the world and then steps back and watches and is very observational. Have you ever done nudity?<\/p>\n

DiCaprio: Yes, maybe I have. I did a film which you never would\u2019ve seen, called \u201cTotal Eclipse.\u201d It was about Arthur Rimbaud, a French poet, when I was 17 or 18. I was nude in that. And I think I was partially nude in \u201cThe Aviator.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lawrence: I want to ask \u2013 I find that my creative part of my brain and the political part of my brain are intrinsically linked. Like that\u2019s how I\u2019m digesting the world. Are you like that?<\/p>\n

DiCaprio: No. But this was an interesting one because PTA wrote this 15 years ago, though it feels very topical. You and I did \u201cDon\u2019t Look Up\u201d together. It\u2019s very difficult to say something about the world we live in. And, it has to have an element of irony or comedy to it otherwise people don\u2019t feel allowed in. There\u2019s all those political films of the seventies: \u201cThe Parallax View,\u201d \u201cThree Days of the Condor,\u201d \u201cAll the President\u2019s Men,\u201d they were taken very seriously. Nowadays, it feels like there\u2019s such polarity and extremism that if you pick a side, you\u2019re alienating half [of the audience].<\/p>\n

Lawrence:\u00a0 What are your good and bad habits as an actor? And can I answer for you?<\/p>\n

DiCaprio: That\u2019d be much better. I think I shoot out a lot of ideas that are sometimes unnecessary. Like a shotgun spray of anything that comes to mind.<\/p>\n

Lawrence: A broken clock is right twice a day.<\/p>\n

DiCaprio: Well, there you go. I\u2019ll throw that question back on you.<\/p>\n

Lawrence: My bad habit is I\u2019m so good at letting go at the end of the day, that I don\u2019t think about the next day. And then it\u2019s a mad scramble in the hair and makeup trailer.<\/p>\n

DiCaprio: So, your ability to shut off in between scenes?<\/p>\n

Lawrence: It\u2019s great for my life. It makes me not go crazy, but the next morning is hell. With \u201cSilver Linings,\u201d I had a scene where I\u2019m just yelling nothing but sports stats to Bob De Niro and it\u2019s obviously hard to memorize. It\u2019s just numbers and sports, which I don\u2019t care about. I didn\u2019t know that I had to do that until the day of, and it\u2019s Robert De Niro and I\u2019m like, \u201cI\u2019m not going to fucking waste Robert de Niro\u2019s time.\u201d So that\u2019s an example of a really bad thing to do.<\/p>\n

DiCaprio: But it turned out great.<\/p>\n

Lawrence: I nailed it on the first take and then fucked up every single other take until we finally moved on. It\u2019s like going to school in just your underwear. It\u2019s a horrible feeling. You and I are both obsessive about sleep when we\u2019re working, like counting the hours. When I did \u201cRed Sparrow,\u201d I took an Adderall instead of a sleeping pill, and then I didn\u2019t sleep all night. I was taking hot showers in a panic. I am not somebody who can function without sleep. And then I had to say the phrase \u201cSenate Armed Services Committee\u201d in a Russian accent. That sucked. I also once took an Ambien in the morning, thinking it was something else.<\/p>\n

DiCaprio: Those are key screwups.<\/p>\n

Lawrence: It was a dance scene with Philip Seymour Hoffman on the second \u201cHunger Games\u201d movie. I was hallucinating. Elizabeth Banks got really annoyed with me. Maybe she didn\u2019t know that I was on an Ambien. \u00a0Well, you and I are about to work with each other again. Is there anything I should absolutely know about Martin Scorsese before we start?<\/p>\n

DiCaprio: It\u2019s a great thing, and he\u2019s going to give you a lot of film references.<\/p>\n

Lawrence: Oh. Do I have to watch all of them?<\/p>\n

DiCaprio: They usually come in the form of a DVD. And if you don\u2019t have a DVD player, get one.<\/p>\n

Lawrence: Oh my God. I\u2019m going to kill myself.<\/p>\n

DiCaprio: But he\u2019ll have screenings sometimes for just one sequence in a movie. If there\u2019s something that he wants you to capture from an old film or the pacing of something, you might have a screening of a whole film just for a specific scene that he wants to see We might see some Japanese ghost films for reference, just to get the tone of it. You\u2019re going to have an amazing time.<\/p>\n

Lawrence: Are you really excited to work with me again?<\/p>\n

DiCaprio: Who isn\u2019t?<\/p>\n

\n\tThis is a conversation from Variety and CNN\u2019s\u00a0Actors on Actors<\/a>. To watch the full video, go to\u00a0CNN\u2019s streaming platform<\/a>\u00a0now. Or check out Variety\u2019s YouTube page at 3 p.m. ET today.<\/p>\n

\t\tProduction: Emily Ullrich; Agency: Nevermind Agency\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This is it. The grand finale to our most compelling Actors on Actors lineup ever. Jennifer Lawrence and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":354128,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[187065,64,63,134,85433,18349,344],"class_list":{"0":"post-354127","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-actors-on-actors","9":"tag-au","10":"tag-australia","11":"tag-entertainment","12":"tag-jennifer-lawrence","13":"tag-leonardo-dicaprio","14":"tag-movies"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/354127","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=354127"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/354127\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/354128"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=354127"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=354127"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=354127"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}