Translations thanks to Karin R.

Vincent Parizeau from RTL Matin interview with Leonardo DiCaprio

VP: This is ‘Premier Choix de RTL’ this morning and what a first choice. First choice to receive Leonardo DiCaprio who is currently in theatres in his movie ‘Shutter Island” by Martin Scorsese. This film is in theatres tomorrow.
Hello Leonardo DiCaprio

LD: Hello

VP: You speak French?

LD: No, no, I don’t speak French

VP: In this movie you play a police officer who goes to an isolated island psychiatric mental instituation. A universe where we ask who is crazy, who is not crazy and where is the limit? Is this a universe that interests you?

LD: For one reason or another, it’s/they have been the type of roles that I have been attracted to as an actor. It’s not a fun or stimulating day at work if they are taken at face value, and it’s always extremely interesting to play a character with different dimensions; a character that has a lot going on psychologically and this film certainly is the core psychological thriller. It’s all of those things but at its core it’s about the human condition and a man dealing with his own trauma, and what he invents or doesn’t in a character piece, and a very complex one at that. And those are the types of the roles that move me emotionally and it gives me a lot to do as an actor.

VP: A very difficult film to shoot emotionally, but physically as well?

LD: Yeah, it was physically very difficult.

VP: When we see you on the cliff, we think of Snow White

LD: There were a lot of sequences where we had giant fans on us with tons of water being splashed. I mean there were sequences in this movie, where there were times when I had no idea what Mark Ruffalo was saying and he had no idea what I was saying. The rain was so intense, the winds machine was so intense we had to kind of get into the character which was kind of hard to endure for weeks on end.

VP: Martin Scorsese, which whom you have made 4 films, was our guest a few days ago. He explained to us that you are an actor who could play any role.

LD: Oh. That’s a wonderful compliment, especially coming from him. You know, what’s so unique about the collaborations in any actor working with Martin Scorsese, his is a genius. What he does so incredibly well is that there is nothing you can’t do with Martin Scorsese. There is no journey you can’t take.

VP: Leonardo DiCaprio, your story right now is obviously your film Shutter Island. But your permanent story is your commitment to the environment. We will talk about this. It is also Haiti. You recently donated 1 Million dollars to the Clinton-Bush fund for Haiti. Was this obvious to you?

LD: Well look, I, you know, much like many people in the Hollywood community, there was a wonderful telethon that George Clooney put on that raised 54-55 million dollars, something like that. This was one of the most profound human tragedies of my life to experience. The images on television were just hauntingly tragic so what is nice is to see the outpouring of generosity, not only from my country but countries around the world and people who really want to give, you know, to this county Haiti which has so long been suffering and how with the earthquake is going to suffer that much more and now will have to rebuild and restructure their county.

VP: In 1998, just after Titanic, you created your Foundation for the Environment. Did you really think at the time that we would be where we are today?

LD: Really it was my conversations with Al Gore. I can go about 12 years ago when Al Gore sat me down in the Whitehouse. I wanted to become proactive in environmental issues and that was from being a young kid in a city like Los Angeles and I got to be exposed to the rest of the world from, you know, the Natural History Museums, seeing documentaries of the rain forest and so that made me really want to become proactive in the environmental world and try to give something back. And Al Gore sat me down. There’s people out there who have really devoted their lives to this and so I thought about it. Of course I remain an actor and it’s my first job, but when I’m not an actor I’m definitely trying to be as proactive as possible about getting the word out and awareness, so to speak, about the issues all around.

VP: You strongly supported Barack Obama during his campaign. Do you find, with Copenhagen or other subjects, that he faces the reality of the power he has today?

LD: Well look, I very respectfully want to give Barack Obama the time and the abilities to do what he has promised and I believe he has the best intensions for our country. I do believe that he wants to make some profound changes in environmental issues and don’t want to critique him in any possible way. I endorsed him personally and believe he has extremely good intensions.

VP: Thank you Leonardo DiCaprio

LD: Thank you

VP: Thank you very much.
(to translator) Sabine, you now have a week to recover. It was an extreme pleasure to be on RTL this morning with Leonardo DiCaprio.

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