Asked to assess what it meant to get Leonardo DiCaprio for his first starring role since his Best Actor Oscar win for The Revenant, Quentin Tarantino is blunt: “He is one of the most if not the most talented actor of his generation, and the most naturally gifted actor I’ve ever worked with.”

DiCaprio doesn’t do many print interviews, but sparked to this opportunity because it was about the film and his, Tarantino’s and Pitt’s work that has put them in the center of the awards race. The 45-year-old who grew up in front of the camera to become arguably Hollywood’s biggest star, also wanted to discuss how movies are changing in the disruptive digital age.

DEADLINE: Quentin Tarantino had you come to his house to read this script. This was your first film since the ordeal of The Revenant. What made this the right return project, and how much did you give him when you finished?

LEONARDO DICAPRIO: Well, first off, I’m a huge fan of films about the industry. Something that was so finite and specific could only come from a mind of somebody that acutely is aware of cinematic history, and the cinematic culture in particular in Los Angeles. Who is celebrating a time period that is a transition from the ’60s into the great golden…not golden era, but the era of the director’s medium. I sensed that right off the bat. It was this celebration of what once was, through the perspective of these two guys, which I thought really clicked and really worked. The fact that he used two outsiders. It was almost like…I told him it was like Nick Carraway. It was like a Gatsby within and without. Within the industry, but they’re also completely detached and hanging on by a thread, and didn’t really belong anymore, which I loved. Two kinds of working-class guys that are…

DEADLINE: So, it’s like the opposite of the Howard Hughes you played in The Aviator…

DICAPRIO: Right. They’re watching as…this crystal castle next door exists and they don’t belong to it, and then Sharon Tate and all of the Hollywood elite are rolling through those gates. That’s the Hollywood they want to belong to, or at least Rick is desperately hoping to be a part of. Just that aspect coupled with his acute knowledge of…I was astounded by Quentin’s knowledge of television. I couldn’t believe that he knew all of the highlight episodes of Ralph Meeker, the actor that I cued into. We looked at a lot of different actors as a template for who Rick might be, from Edd Burns to Ty Hardin, and then I sort of…in watching all of this television and all of these B films, like The Guns of the Magnificent Seven. I’d watched a lot of different Westerns, but I started to delve into television because I was like OK, this is what happens to Rick afterward. I wanted to know about what Rick is doing now, and the fact that he belongs to this generation of actors that didn’t really study the craft. This guy came from the Midwest, hung out in Hollywood and tried to get a foot in the door, but didn’t try to necessarily elevate. And he’s pissed off at the industry that they don’t recognize his talent and his potential. That’s what this little girl sort of represents, and I thought it was his great celebration of our culture in Los Angeles, and cinema, and those people that never quite made that transition. I was really touched by the beauty of his relationship with this young, who is like, aren’t we lucky? Yeah, you didn’t make the Steve McQueen transition from television to movies, but nonetheless, aren’t we lucky to be working in this town? I really queued into that, and then of course the great relationship between Rick and Cliff.

Continue reading Leonardo DiCaprio On ‘Once Upon A Time In Hollywood’ And Looking For Positives In Disruption That Has Turned The Movie Business On Its Ear – The Deadline Q&A

Leonardo, Brad Pitt, Margaret Qualley, Mike Moh & Julia Butters joined Variety‘s Marc Malkin for a Q&A session about the production of the film at the ArcLight Cinemas on Tuesday night (December 17) in Hollywood.

Not only was the flamethrower used by Leonardo DiCaprio to torch Nazi soldiers and a member of the Mason family in “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” real, but the flames felt by the stuntmen on set were real, too.

“The first day I used that [flamethrower] was a really hard day because they had created this sort of channel — by the way, all the greatest stuntmen in this town’s history showed up for that, it was amazing,” DiCaprio said. “I really had to blast them with a real flamethrower and torch all of them. I started feeling very bad for them, but then soon felt very bad for myself because that heat just wafted right back into my face. I started to get chronic headaches that day. I knew the flamethrower thing was coming back up, but it was in the open air that time, thank god.”

“I did have a laugh when I saw it on the call sheet,” co-star Brad Pitt chimed in. “It said, ‘LDC flamethrower rehearsal.’ I thought, ‘Oh, that’s going to suck.’”

Moh, who goes head to head with Pitt’s Cliff Booth as Bruce Lee, shared the story of director Quentin Tarantino’s surprise decision to film the controversial fight scene in one take.

“Sunday, we’re doing our final stunt rehearsal and we’re all good and we’re about to leave when Quentin pulls me aside. He says, ‘Mike, the way we’re going to shoot this scene, I have a certain idea of how we’re going to do it and it’s going to be one take. And it’s all on you to do it so that I can shoot it the way I want to,’” Moh said. “And uh, he said, ‘So don’t screw it up.’ And I looked at him and I did a big gulp. And I said, ‘You hired the right guy, Mr. Tarantino.’”

“He’s such a purist,” Pitt added. “He told me that and I said, ‘Okay, yeah, but you can, there’s ways to cheat it. You can whip pan and then cut two different takes together, right?’ He goes, ‘No, no, no, no, no, no, that’s cheating!’”

Qualley explained how taking an impromptu vacation to Panama led to her scene-stealing role as the seductive Manson family member Pussycat. After she thought she failed her audition, Qualley gave into her father’s cajoling and visited him abroad. While in Panama, her agent called to inform her that Tarantino wanted her to return for a script reading with Pitt.

Being Pussycat was no small feat, however, as Qualley explained that she had nightmares after Tarantino gave her three DVDs to prepare for her character.

Other highlights of the Q&A include DiCaprio and Butters mutually fawning over each other’s acting, the cast members fondly referring to Tarantino as “QT” and the revelation of the chant the director led during filming.

“Let’s do another take,” Tarantino would say on set if things weren’t up to his standards. “Why?”

“Because we love doing movies,” the crew would respond enthusiastically.

Credit: Variety

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Leonardo DiCaprio sets new SAG Awards record for most individual film nominations for an actor.

Leo has left Denzel in the dust. Thanks to his lead actor nomination for “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” on Wednesday, Leonardo DiCaprio is now the Screen Actors Guild Awards’ most nominated male performer on the film side with a total of six individual bids.

DiCaprio was in a tie with Denzel Washington at five, but the compositions of their tallies are slightly different. All of Washington’s nominations have come in lead — “The Hurricane” (1999), “Training Day” (2001), “Flight” (2012), “Fences” (2016) and “Roman J. Israel, Esq. (2017). DiCaprio, on the other hand, has five in lead — “The Aviator (“2004), “Blood Diamond” (2006), “J. Edgar” (2011), “The Revenant” (2015) and “Once” — and one in supporting, “The Departed” (2006). He also still has a long way to go to catch up to Meryl Streep‘s record of 11 individual nominations.

Both DiCaprio and Washington have notched one win so far, and in back-to-back years, no less, for “The Revenant” and “Fences,” respectively. Washington has a leg up on DiCaprio in one big way: All of his SAG Awards nominations have translated into Oscar nominations (he lost the Oscar for “Fences” to Casey Affleck for “Manchester by the Sea,” but he won the Oscar for “Training Day” over SAG Awards champ Russell Crowe for “A Beautiful Mind”).

DiCaprio didn’t make the Oscar cut for “J. Edgar” and “The Departed,” though there was a lot of confusion over the latter about his placement because he also had “Blood Diamond” that year (and actors can’t be double-nominated in the same category at the Oscars). Chances are DiCaprio will make the Oscar shortlist for “Once,” which also received a SAG ensemble nomination; “Once” has been hitting all the guilds this week without any conspicuous absences like some other top Oscar contenders (e.g. “The Irishman missed for Robert De Niro at the Golden Globes and SAG Awards).

Counting ensemble bids, DiCaprio’s career SAG Awards nomination total stands at 11. That sounds like a lot — and it is for film, which is what all of his nominations have been for — but it’s nowhere near the overall record of Edie Falco, who has 22 nominations, or lots of other TV folk who could get shortlisted year after year (Julia Louis-Dreyfus has 21, Alec Baldwin, 20). Three other actors hit a career total of 11 nominations this year: Jennifer Aniston, Russell Crowe and Tony Shalhoub.

DiCaprio is up against Christian Bale (“Ford v Ferrari), Adam Driver (“Marriage Story”), Taron Egerton (“Rocketman”) and Joaquin Phoenix (“Joker”).

© goldderby.com

Nominations for the 26th annual Screen Actors Guild Awards were announced Wednesday morning, with Quentin Tarantino’s “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood,” Martin Scorsese’s “The Irishman” and Jay Roach’s “Bombshell” dominating nods on the film front.

Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Leading Role:

Christian Bale (“Ford v Ferrari”)
Leonardo DiCaprio (“Once Upon a Time in Hollywood”)
Adam Driver (“Marriage Story”)
Taron Egerton (“Rocketman”)
Joaquin Phoenix (“Joker”)

Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Supporting Role:

Jamie Foxx (“Just Mercy”)
Tom Hanks (“A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood”)
Al Pacino (“The Irishman”)
Joe Pesci (“The Irishman”)
Brad Pitt (“Once Upon a Time in Hollywood”)

Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture:

“Bombshell” (Lionsgate)
“The Irishman” (Netflix)
“Jojo Rabbit” (Fox)
“Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” (Sony)
“Parasite” (Neon)

Outstanding Action Performance by a Stunt Ensemble in a Motion Picture:

“Avengers: Endgame”
“Ford v Ferrari”
“The Irishman”
“Joker”
“Once Upon a Time in Hollywood”

Check out the full 2020 SAG Awards nominations : sagawards.org

Leonardo DiCaprio is one of the Great Performers of 2019. Chosen by The New York Times Magazine critics Wesley Morris and A.O. Scott, the annual Great Performers Issue names the 10 actors whose work was the most captivating, challenging, shocking and inspiring in the year gone by.

Do you consider Leonardo DiCaprio funny? Like, on purpose? Well, please do! Some of his best moments are the riotous ones. Once, in “The Wolf of Wall Street,” as the wolf, he downed some quaaludes and rolled down the steps of a country club like a sack of apples in a stop-motion dream. Another time, he was one of those genteel antebellum racists — Calvin Candie in “Django Unchained” — whom he inflated with a lot of “I do de-clahr!” effrontery. (With all due respect to Django, DiCaprio was unchained.) Rick Dalton is the latest and most embarrassed enrollee in DiCaprio’s Comedy Club.

Rick is an actor whose star, in 1969, has grown dingy. And in “Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood,” DiCaprio has a ball recreating Rick’s TV-western mulch and B-movie schlock. He gives the gunslinging every ounce of deadpan machismo he can summon and becomes exactly the flamethrowing maniac you need for an action pageant called “Fourteen Fists of McCluskey.” DiCaprio has to hold on to the movie’s satirical showbiz insanity as well as Rick’s alcoholism, square bravado, insecurity, faded stardom and private misery.

None of that is funny, per se, except that DiCaprio wills it to be so, not simply in the furious mock-Hollywood bits but in a long, gorgeous passage right in the middle of the movie, on the set of a western series. Rick has taken a gig as a villain (another one), and before the cameras roll, he finds himself chatting with a young co-star who tells him he’s the best actor she’s ever worked with. In between, Rick flubs a line and, in costume and in his trailer, proceeds to berate himself for being an undisciplined hack. It’s as divine as any of DiCaprio’s great eruptions, at once a joke on acting and perhaps a window into the soul of a star — Jack Lord devastated that he’ll never be Jack Lemmon. I’m with the kid. Sort of. Rick is one of the most mediocre actors I’ve ever seen. But it takes a real maestro to summon all that talentlessness and keep knocking you out of your chair. — Wesley Morris

Read more: nytimes

The 2020 Golden Globe nominations have been announced. Marriage Story leads the film nominees for the 77th annual Golden Globe Awards, landing six nominations, followed by The Irishman and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood with five apiece.

Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy
Dolemite Is My Name
Jojo Rabbit
Knives Out
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
Rocketman

Best Actor in a Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy
Daniel Craig (“Knives Out”)
Roman Griffin Davis (“Jojo Rabbit”)
Leonardo DiCaprio (“Once Upon a Time in Hollywood”)
Taron Egerton (“Rocketman”)
Eddie Murphy (“Dolemite Is My Name”)

Best Actor in a Supporting Role in Any Motion Picture
Tom Hanks (“A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood”)
Anthony Hopkins (“The Two Popes”)
Al Pacino (“The Irishman”)
Joe Pesci (“The Irishman”)
Brad Pitt (“Once Upon a Time in Hollywood”)

Best Director – Motion Picture
Bong Joon-ho (“Parasite”)
Sam Mendes (“1917”)
Todd Phillips (“Joker”)
Martin Scorsese (“The Irishman”)
Quentin Tarantino (“Once Upon a Time in Hollywood”)

Best Screenplay – Motion Picture
Noah Baumbach (“Marriage Story”)
Bong Joon-ho and Han Jin-won (“Parasite”)
Anthony McCarten (“The Two Popes”)
Quentin Tarantino (“Once Upon a Time in Hollywood”)
Steven Zaillian (“The Irishman”)

Full list of Golden Globes nominees : hollywoodreporter

The Critics’ Choice Association on Sunday revealed the nominations for the 25th annual Critics’ Choice Awards.

Martin Scorsese’s The Irishman leads this year’s nominees with a total of 14 mentions and the next most nominated film was Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood with 12 nods.

Best Actor

Antonio Banderas – Pain and Glory
Robert De Niro – The Irishman
Leonardo DiCaprio – Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood
Adam Driver – Marriage Story
Eddie Murphy – Dolemite Is My Name
Joaquin Phoenix – Joker
Adam Sandler – Uncut Gems

Best Picture

1917
Ford v Ferrari
The Irishman
Jojo Rabbit
Joker
Little Women
Marriage Story
Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood
Parasite
Uncut Gems

Best Supporting Actor

Willem Dafoe – The Lighthouse
Tom Hanks – A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood
Anthony Hopkins – The Two Popes
Al Pacino – The Irishman
Joe Pesci – The Irishman
Brad Pitt – Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood

Best Young Actor/Actress

Julia Butters – Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood
Roman Griffin Davis – Jojo Rabbit
Noah Jupe – Honey Boy
Thomasin McKenzie – Jojo Rabbit
Shahadi Wright Joseph – Us
Archie Yates – Jojo Rabbit

Best Acting Ensemble

Bombshell
The Irishman
Knives Out
Little Women
Marriage Story
Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood
Parasite

Best Director

Noah Baumbach – Marriage Story
Greta Gerwig – Little Women
Bong Joon Ho – Parasite
Sam Mendes – 1917
Josh Safdie and Benny Safdie – Uncut Gems
Martin Scorsese – The Irishman
Quentin Tarantino – Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood

Best Original Screenplay

Noah Baumbach – Marriage Story
Rian Johnson – Knives Out
Bong Joon Ho and Han Jin Won – Parasite
Quentin Tarantino – Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood
Lulu Wang – The Farewell

Best Cinematography

Jarin Blaschke – The Lighthouse
Roger Deakins – 1917
Phedon Papamichael – Ford v Ferrari
Rodrigo Prieto – The Irishman
Robert Richardson – Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood
Lawrence Sher – Joker

Best Production Design

Mark Friedberg, Kris Moran – Joker
Dennis Gassner, Lee Sandales – 1917
Jess Gonchor, Claire Kaufman – Little Women
Lee Ha Jun – Parasite Barbara Ling, Nancy Haigh – Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood
Bob Shaw, Regina Graves – The Irishman
Donal Woods, Gina Cromwell – Downton Abbey

Best Editing

Ronald Bronstein, Benny Safdie – Uncut Gems
Andrew Buckland, Michael McCusker – Ford v Ferrari
Yang Jinmo – Parasite
Fred Raskin – Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood
Thelma Schoonmaker – The Irishman
Lee Smith – 1917

Best Costume Design

Ruth E. Carter – Dolemite Is My Name
Julian Day – Rocketman
Jacqueline Durran – Little Women
Arianne Phillips – Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood
Sandy Powell, Christopher Peterson – The Irishman
Anna Robbins – Downton Abbey

Best Hair and Makeup

Bombshell
Dolemite Is My Name
The Irishman
Joker
Judy
Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood
Rocketman

© hollywoodreporter