{"id":41208,"date":"2025-09-24T19:24:07","date_gmt":"2025-09-24T19:24:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/41208\/"},"modified":"2025-09-24T19:24:07","modified_gmt":"2025-09-24T19:24:07","slug":"why-leonardo-dicaprio-was-told-to-change-his-name-at-the-start-of-his-career","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/41208\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Leonardo DiCaprio was told to change his name at the start of his career"},"content":{"rendered":"

Leonardo DiCaprio reflected on the early days of his career on the latest episode of \u201cNew Heights.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

The movie star, 50, shared on Travis Kelce and Jason Kelce\u2019s podcast Wednesday that he once had an agent tell him he\u2019d have to change his real name to be successful.<\/p>\n

He said the agent told him his moniker was \u201ctoo ethnic,\u201d adding, \u201cThey\u2019re never going to hire you.\u201d<\/p>\n

Leonardo\u2019s last name is Italian, as his father, George DiCaprio, is a mix of Italian and German descent.<\/p>\n

Leonardo DiCaprio revealed on \u201cNew Heights\u201d why an agent asked him to change his name.<\/p>\n

The movie star said he was told his last name, DiCaprio, was \u201ctoo ethnic.\u201d Getty Images<\/p>\n

The \u201cTitanic\u201d star said the agent told him his \u201cnew name\u201d would be \u201cLenny Williams,\u201d explaining that they had taken Leonardo\u2019s middle name, Wilhelm, and slightly revised it to replace his surname.<\/p>\n

According to the acclaimed actor, his dad saw the headshot with his fake name, \u201cripped it up\u201d and told his son, \u201cOver my dead body.\u201d<\/p>\n

Benicio Del Toro \u2014 who was beside Leonardo for the interview, as they were promoting their new film, \u201cOne Battle After Another\u201d \u2014 shared that he, too, was told the same when he first started.<\/p>\n

\u201cBenny Del,\u201d the \u201cUsual Suspects\u201d star, 58, said, revealing the faux moniker he was given.<\/p>\n

Leonardo joked that his father, George DiCaprio, told him in response to the name-change request, \u201cOver my dead body.\u201d<\/p>\n

Leonardo\u2019s co-star Benicio Del Toro shared that he was once in a similar predicament.<\/p>\n

Jason, 37, then chimed in, \u201cThis podcast would not be the same with Lenny Williams and Benny Del.\u201d<\/p>\n

During the interview, Leonardo also shared another anecdote of when he first started acting.<\/p>\n

The Oscar winner recalled that an agent once had him line up \u201clike cattle\u201d and flat-out told him \u201cno.\u201d<\/p>\n

He speculated on what may have played a factor in the rejection, \u201cI was a breakdancer. I breakdanced for, like, money on the street sometimes, so I had, like, the step haircut.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Leonardo also recalled during the interview getting told \u201cno\u201d many times in the early days of his career. Getty Images<\/p>\n

Jason Kelce pointed out how those agents are probably kicking themselves for turning down the Oscar winner. WireImage<\/p>\n

\u201cI remember saying to my dad, \u2018This is horrible,\u2019 and I went back and they did it again,\u201d Leonardo added.<\/p>\n

Jason reassured him that the agents who passed on him are likely saying \u201choly s\u2013t\u201d to themselves now.<\/p>\n

DiCaprio broke into the acting industry at the age of 14 when he appeared in several commercials for Matchbox cars. <\/p>\n

However, it wasn\u2019t until the early 1990s that he started to act regularly in the show \u201cGrowing Pains\u201d before rising to fame with \u201cThis Boy\u2019s Life.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Leonardo DiCaprio reflected on the early days of his career on the latest episode of \u201cNew Heights.\u201d The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":41209,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[3213,26768,321,922,93,61,60,10495,270,2159],"class_list":["post-41208","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-actors","tag-benicio-del-toro","tag-celebrities","tag-celebrity-news","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-leonardo-dicaprio","tag-movies","tag-podcasts"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41208","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41208"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41208\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/41209"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41208"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41208"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41208"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}