The young dreamboat was the stuff of teengirl-worship for a good decade until a man named Martin Scorsese came into his life and introduced audiences to Leo The Serious Actor, and though he's still pretty sweet to look at, his genetic good luck is less likely to be the topic of conversation when he keeps blowing away critics with consistently stellar performances.
Hooking up with Christopher The Dark Knight Nolan for the mind-bending thriller Inception, DiCaprio plays Cobb, a man who specializes in surreptitiously stealing secrets from people's dreams and implanting foreign thoughts that they will think are theirs when they wake up. Kinda nuts, right? But if anyone can engage an audience and help make sense of Nolan's penchant for the head-trippy, it's the fearless and focused DiCaprio.
Poised to make his mark on this summer's blockbuster season, we decided it would be an ideal time to count down Leo's Top 5 Roles.
And no, Titanic didn't make the cut. Deal with it.
5. BASKETBALL DIARIES (1995)
Portraying larger-than-life author, provocateur and New York legend Jim Carroll, DiCaprio shed his squeaky clean, teen idol image with this gritty coming-of-age journey about a promising kid's descent into drugs, crime and everything else in between. He not only showed his adeptness with difficult and emotionally draining scenes, he brought Carroll's poetry and hard times to life, making our hearts ache for a clever boy who made the wrong choices and nearly lost everything. A performance that hinted at the greatness that would come out of the then-21-year-old.
4. THE AVIATOR (2004)
Again taking on the responsibility of embodying a very well-known real-life personality and impressing at every turn, DiCaprio stole the show as Howard Hughes in his second collaboration with Scorsese. As the opportunistic, overly ambitious and perhaps-mad director-come-flying-enthusiast, DiCaprio perfectly captured the drive that possessed Hughes to delve into myriad industries and the obsessive behaviour that threatened to collapse his fortune and force everyone in his life to the sidelines. Bonus: he nails the accent on this one.
3. REVOLUTIONARY ROAD (2008)
Hyped from the get-go for reuniting the Titanic co-stars a decade after they set out on their maiden voyage together, Sam Mendes' insightful look at the deteriorating marriage of a superficially happy, but really barely hanging on, couple has all the hallmarks of an iconic performance from tense exchanges infused with the right amount of nuance and almost-bursting rage, to quiet scenes that speak so much about the seriously troubled marriage of Frank and April from just a sideways glance courtesy of DiCaprio. The period piece explores the lost dreams and utter despair behind forced smiles and though the amazing Michael Shannon gives him a run for his money as the truth-spewing son of a gossipy neighbour, Leo owns this movie as a defeated man who's lost the capacity to even be actively unhappy.
2. CATCH ME IF YOU CAN (2002)
Talk about being born to play a role. DiCaprio is ideally cast as youthful conman Frank Abagnale Jr., the charming, scheming thief who posed as a pilot, doctor and legal prosecutor while passing millions of dollars worth of fraudulent cheques. The audience never doubts that the people Frank is deceiving want to believe his tall tales because DiCaprio has that Cary Grant-esque gleam in his eye that makes it hard to see his shortcomings. That is, unless you're FBI agent Carl Hanratty (Tom Hanks), the cat to Abagnale's mouse and a pleasure to see on-screen with a worthy acting opponent like DiCaprio.
1. THE DEPARTED (2006)
So besides its historical significance as being the film for which Marty netted his first Oscar, this gritty Southie drama featured outstanding performances by all the main leads - Matt Damon, Jack Nicholson, Mark Wahlberg, Martin Sheen and Alec Baldwin - but Leo really proved to be firing on all cylinders as the conflicted mole who gets into mob boss Frank Costello's (Nicholson) back pocket and finds leading the double life, and the outrageous violence that comes from having friends in low places, may be tantamount to signing his own death certificate. A role that demanded the audience identify with Leo's undercover cop even as the bodies piled up around him, challenging doesn't even begin to explain it. An indisputable example of why DiCaprio is one of today's most accomplished actors.
source.
No comments:
Post a Comment