Leonardo DiCaprio, the great Hollywood star without an Oscar, turns 40
LOS ANGELES.- The actor with a long career on the big screen has not yet taken home the long-awaited gold statuette
Leonardo DiCaprio knows the poor side of Los Angeles, as he grew up in a neighborhood he often compares to the one in the darker scenes of Taxi Driver. There he used to see prostitutes and drug addicts on the streets. "I grew up in poverty," the Hollywood star confessed last year to the Los Angeles Times. And that allowed him to know the other side of life. A scholarship to study at a school in the affluent neighborhood of Westwood opened his eyes to the other half of the world.
The Beginning
At the age of 15, he told his mother that he wanted to be an actor. In the same interview, DiCaprio recalled that he had begged his mother, Irmelin, of German origin, to let him audition. Today, she accompanies her only son to film festivals and award shows.
DeCaprio, who turns 40 this Tuesday, November 11, owes his career in part to the nose of Robert de Niro, who chose him in 1993 from among a group of young candidates for the family drama This Boy's Life, by Michael Caton-Jones .
Trajectory
It's been a long time since DiCaprio chose his roles, which in recent times tend to be those of rich and powerful men, such as the trader from The Wolf of Wall Street or the wealthy Gatsby from The Great Gatsby.
His portrayal of money, sex and drug-addicted Wall Street financier Jordan Belfort in Martin Scorsese's film marked his fifth collaboration with the American director after Gangs of New York, Aviator, The Departed and Shutter Island. .
His role as "the wolf" of Wall Street also earned him his fifth Oscar nomination. However, since his first nomination for the gold statuette 20 years ago, for Lasse Hallström's What's Eating Gilbert Grape?, and later for Scorsese's Aviator and Edward Zwick's Blood Diamond, he has never managed to take home the award. .
And that's despite a string of masterful performances, like when he portrayed from youth to old age the unscrupulous and feared FBI chief J. Edgar Hoover in Clint Eastwood's J.Edgar; or the pilot and film director Howard Hughes in Aviator.
The role that made him a global star, however, was that of Jack Dawson, a penniless young man who falls in love with a socialite in James Cameron's 1997 Titanic.
Recently, in an interview with Marie Claire magazine, British actress Kate Winslet, 39, who shared the poster with DiCaprio in the film, spoke about her relationship with the actor, who was 23 years old when Titanic was released.
Winslet clarified that the relationship between them had never been of a romantic nature, but she said that they became close friends and supported each other during those times.
Romances
DiCaprio is, in fact, very secretive about his actual romances. Ex-girlfriends of the actor, who has not yet married, include Brazilian supermodel Gisele Bündchen and fellow Israeli model Bar Rafaeli. This year he was seen with another blonde, the German model Toni Garrn.
Activism
A United Nations peace ambassador, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon described him last September as "a credible voice in the environmental defense movement."
During the recent UN climate summit, one of the main speakers at the United Nations headquarters in New York was the actor, who said that climate change was "the greatest challenge for humanity", an issue not only political, but "of survival".
"I am not speaking as an actor, but as a concerned citizen," he noted.
DiCaprio's concern for the environment has long been known in Hollywood.
In 1998 he created the Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation, which works together with other associations on issues such as global warming, renewable energy, drinking water and the protection of ecosystems.He has long been driving hybrid cars and using solar energy.
Projects
His next film in Hollywood is the Western-thriller The Revenant, by Mexican director Alejandro González Iñárritu, in which he will play a 19th-century American hunter who, after being severely attacked by a bear, is robbed by his companions and left dying. .
The character survives and swears revenge. Perhaps this is the role that opens the door for DiCaprio to the Oscar.
