Categories Leo News

Leonardo DiCaprio makes surprise appearance at Tribeca Film Festival

Leonardo DiCaprio makes surprise appearance at Tribeca Film Festival

Leonardo DiCaprio made a surprise appearance during a talk between Robert De Niro and Martin Scorsese at the Beacon Theatre on Sunday as part of the Tribeca Film Festival.

After playing a clip from “The Wolf of Wall Street,” De Niro and Scorsese discussed how the famed director first came to work with now-longtime-collaborator DiCaprio. As it turned out, De Niro encouraged Scorsese to meet him after being impressed with the then-young actor while working on 1993’s “This Boy’s Life.”

“He’s really good, this kid,” De Niro recalled saying. “And that was it!”

Scorsese then called out from the stage to Leo, who had secretly been sitting in the audience. Clad in his signature baseball hat and a black jacket, an in-disguise DiCaprio stood and waved to the audience and stars onstage.

He received a round of applause but didn’t participate in the talk.

Categories Leo News

Neon Carnival debuts at Stagecoach: Jason Aldean and Leonardo DiCaprio expected to attend

Right about the time when Sam Hunt takes the Mane Stage on Saturday at Stagecoach, another party will kick off less than 10 miles away. 

Neon Carnival, a late-night party with its own Ferris wheel, has activated during the first weekend of Coachella for a decade. But this year, founder Brent Bolthouse is debuting another iteration on the second day of Stagecoach: California’s Country Music Festival. 

The two events are not affiliated, but that doesn’t mean Bolthouse isn’t planning a few Western-themed surprises. Think: a mechanical bull and “more whiskey than tequila,” he said in a phone interview Wednesday. 

“Whiskey on tap,” Bolthouse said. “I’m half joking.” 

For years, Bolthouse erected Neon Carnival on an active runway at a private airport in Thermal — which required the event to be broken down immediately, he said. But in 2018, Bolthouse secured what he hopes is “a permanent location for a long time” at HITS Desert Horse Park just down the road. 

Going Incognito, Leonardo DiCaprio at the Levi's® Brand

Going Incognito, Leonardo DiCaprio at the Levi’s® Brand Presents NEON CARNIVAL with Tequila Don Julio on April 14, 2018 in Thermal. (Photo: Cassidy Sparrow | WireImage)

So on Saturday, Bolthouse will “have this grand experiment” to “see if we can do a second weekend” during Stagecoach. He’s bringing in Jason Aldean’s touring DJ, Dee Jay Silver, for the occasion, and says Aldean is expected to show up to the party that starts at 10 p.m.

“A carnival and country music are like kindred spirits, right?” Bolthouse said.

Also slated to be in attendance are actor Leonardo DiCaprio, DJ Brandi Cyrus, actresses Nina Dobrev and Sabina Gadecki, singers Chase Bryant, Willa Ford and Tyler Rich, and NFL players CJ Beathard, Cole Hikutini,  Erik Magnuson, George Kittle, JP Flynn, Max McCaffrey, and Trent Taylor. 

Categories Leo News

Leonardo DiCaprio in Talks to Star in Guillermo del Toro’s ‘Nightmare Alley’ (EXCLUSIVE)

Leonardo DiCaprio is in negotiations to star in Fox Searchlight’s “Nightmare Alley,” Guillermo del Toro’s follow-up to his Oscar-winning film “The Shape of Water.”

Del Toro will direct the pic and co-wrote the script with Kim Morgan. “Nightmare Alley” is being produced and financed by del Toro and J. Miles Dale with TSG Entertainment, with Fox Searchlight acquiring worldwide distribution rights to the film.

While there is a 1947 Fox pic, this film will be more based on the William Lindsay Gresham novel of the same name. The 1947 movie starred Tyrone Power as an ambitious young con-man who teams up with a female psychiatrist who is even more corrupt than he is. At first, they enjoy success fleecing people with their mentalist act, but then she turns the tables on him, out-manipulating the manipulator.

The film shoots this fall as del Toro fills out the remaining roles.

After “The Shape of Water” went on to win several Oscars, including best picture and director for del Toro, the auteur decided to hold off on picking his next directing gig, only focusing his efforts as a producer on the Searchlight movie “Antlers.”

Categories Leo News

Leonardo DiCaprio and Bill Gates on board, vegan food company is set to make a Wall Street splash

Beyond Meat, the maker of vegan chicken and beef substitutes backed by some of the biggest names in food and technology, is seeking to raise as much as $US184 million ($258 million) in its initial public offering.

Leonardo DiCaprio is one of the company's high-profile investors.
Leonardo DiCaprio is one of the company’s high-profile investors. CREDIT:AP

The company plans to sell 8.75 million shares for $US19 to $US21 each, according to a filing Monday with the US Securities and Exchange Commission. A listing at the top of that range would give the company a market value of about $US1.2 billion ($1.7 billion)  based on the shares to be outstanding after the offer, according to its filing.

The company is one of several makers of plant-based meat substitutes or lab-grown meats that have attracted high-profile backers. Its investors include Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates and actor Leonardo Dicaprio, as well as former McDonald’s chief executive officer Don Thompson. Beyond Meat’s biggest stakeholders are venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers LLC, which owns 16 per cent of the company, and Twitter co-founder Ev William’s Obvious Ventures with 9 per cent, according to its filings.

Tyson Foods, the largest US meat producer, is accelerating development of its own alternative-protein products and is also a backer of Beyond Meat. Tyson has invested in Jerusalem-based Future Meat Technologies and, along with Gates, Richard Branson and Cargill, is an investor in Memphis Meats, a cultured meat producer.

Categories Leo News

‘The Entire Wing Exploded in a Fireball’: Leonardo DiCaprio, Keanu Reeves & More Celebs Share Their Scary Plane Stories

Reeves channeled his quick-thinking Speed character during a recent real-life travel emergency. After his flight from San Francisco to Burbank, California, was forced to make an emergency landing in Bakersfield in March 2019, the actor and his fellow passengers were stranded at a closed airport as they waited on transportation to Los Angeles.

Freelance cartoonist Brian Rea captured the emergency on social media, tracking Reeves’ movements and calls to action in a hilariously epic Instagram Story as the actor helped explain the possible transportation options to fellow passengers.

A 2-hour van ride to L.A. was the fastest solution at that point, and Reeves proved himself to be the ideal road trip companion. The Matrixactor kept the group entertained by reading out facts about Bakersfield and playing country music native to the area, which Rea luckily caught on camera.

Categories Leo News

Leonardo DiCaprio posts Bantar Gebang landfill photo on Instagram

Jakarta  /  Fri, March 22, 2019  /  06:34 pm

Leonardo DiCaprio posts Bantar Gebang landfill photo on Instagram

In May last year, a newly discovered species of beetle in the Maliau Basin in Kalimantan was named Grouvellinus leonardodicaprioi by Taxon Expeditions in appreciation of the actor’s work for the environment. (Shutterstock/Tinseltown)

United States actor Leonardo DiCaprio recently posted a photo of Bantar Gebang landfill in Bekasi, West Java, on his Instagram account, raising concerns about plastic waste and its dangers.

View this post on Instagram

#Regram #RG @everydayclimatechange: This is Elisabetta Zavoli @elizavola taking over the @everydayclimatechange Instagram account this week and sharing my documentary work of the ‘Landfill midwife’ project. . Some men, from Cikiwul village, catch up fishes in the highly polluted muddy waters that percolate from Bantar Gebang biggest dump zone. Banter Gebang landfill receives the waste of about 15 millions people living in Jakarta. Trash pickers need the litter to make a living and the Indonesian society needs trash pickers to recycle all possible materials that otherwise would be just discarded. . Indonesia, is ranked the second largest plastic polluter in the world behind only China with reports showing that the country produces 187.2 million tonnes of plastic waste each year of which more than 1 million tons leaks into the ocean. Recent studies discovered that as plastics decay, they emit traces of methane and ethylene, two powerful greenhouse gases, and the rate of emission increases with time. The emissions occur when plastic materials are exposed to ambient solar radiation, whether in water or in the air, but in air, emission rates are much higher. Results show that plastics represent a heretofore unrecognized source of climate-relevant trace gases that are expected to increase as more plastic is produced and accumulated in the environment. Polyethylene, used in shopping bags, is the most produced and discarded synthetic polymer globally and was found to be the most prolific emitter of methane and ethylene. It’s estimated that over 8 billion tons of virgin plastic have been produced since 1950, making plastic one of the largest man-made materials on the planet, behind steel and cement. Of that volume, more than half was produced in the last 16 years, amid a global boom in single-use, disposable plastic. Current annual production levels are expected to double in the next 20 years. #everydayclimatechange #climatechange #globalwarming #climatechangeisreal #environment #waste #plasticwaste #plastics #dumpsite #midwife #health #garbage #trash #plasticpollution #Indonesia #Jakarta #childbirth #children #mothers #pregnantwomen

A post shared by Leonardo DiCaprio (@leonardodicaprio) on

The photo was originally posted by @everydayclimatechange, whose profile reads “a diverse group of photographers from six continents documenting climate change”.

Taken by photographer Elisabetta Zavoli, she called it the “documentary work of the ‘landfill midwife’ project’”.

The first part of the caption read, “Some men, from Cikiwul village, catch fish in the highly polluted muddy waters that percolate from the Bantar Gebang biggest dump zone. Bantar Gebang landfill receives the waste of about 15 million people living in Jakarta. Trash pickers need the litter to make a living and Indonesian society needs trash pickers to recycle all possible materials that otherwise would just be discarded.”

“Indonesia is ranked the second-largest plastic polluter in the world behind only China with reports showing that the country produces 187.2 million tons of plastic waste each year of which more than 1 million tons leaks into the ocean.”

DiCaprio is known for his environmentally conscious efforts, from starting the Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation dedicated to supporting various biodiversity-preservation projects to making the Before the Flood documentary in 2016, which focuses on climate change issues.

The documentary featured the Mount Leuser National Park in Aceh, a UNESCO world heritage site that covers thousands of hectares of protected forest in Aceh and North Sumatra, which is endangered because of a high rate of deforestation.

The actor recently became an investor in eco-conscious sneaker Allbirds. 

Leonardo DiCaprio?@LeoDiCaprio

Proud to be an investor in @Allbirds, a company dedicated to creating a more sustainable future by developing new materials and serving as a model for the footwear industry. Learn more: https://www.allbirds.com/pages/our-materials-tree

In May last year, a newly discovered species of beetle in the Maliau Basin in Kalimantan was named Grouvellinus leonardodicaprioi by Taxon Expeditions in appreciation of the actor’s work for the environment.

DiCaprio’s newest film, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, is set to be released on July 26. Written and directed by Quentin Tarantino, it tells the story of Hollywood in the late 1960s. The cast includes Brad Pitt, Margot Robbie, Damian Lewis, Dakota Fanning and Bruce Dern. (wng)

Categories Leo News

How Leonardo DiCaprio is fighting climate change with finance

Editor’s note: The following article contains information only. It is not intended as general or personal advice. Your Money recommends seeking professional advice specific to your personal circumstances.


Oscar-winning actor and Hollywood heartthrob Leonardo DiCaprio has long been an environmental activist, but he’s now turning to the world of finance to help tackle his chosen cause.

Leonardo Di Caprio, a United Nations Messenger of Peace, speaks at the signing ceremony for the Paris Agreement on climate change, Friday, April 22, 2016 (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan)

DiCaprio has announced he will become a senior adviser to a new $150 million environmental unit at fund manager Princeville Capital that invests directly into tech companies fighting global warming.

Taking to Twitter, it appears he is willing to put his money where his mouth is, becoming an investor himself.

“What I like about Leo’s fund if you are predisposed to wanting to improve the climate or stop climate change, this is a fund that invests in companies that are trying to mitigate the effects of climate change,” The Motley Fool head of investment Scott Phillips told Your Money Live.

The major difference between DiCaprio’s fund and other ethical funds is rather than divesting from big polluters, his is actively investing in potential future solutions.

However, it’s important not to get caught up by celebrity when making financial decisions.

“It doesn’t mean it’s a bad investment, it just means you’ve got to be a little bit careful about it,” Phillips said.

For those who are looking to invest in companies working in a similar way, there aren’t a lot of options

“Most of these are very early stage companies and they may breakthrough or they may breakdown,” Phillips explained.

“If all you’re doing is buying shares from someone else in a company that isn’t going to make it, you’re only hurting yourself. Be a little bit careful.”