Leonardo DiCaprio - king of the world

His dreams of a glorious acting career started early. As he tells his own story, at the age of two, without knowing how or why, he climbed onto the stage at a theater festival and started dancing to the music. To the undivided delight of the audience.

But it was in his teenage years that he really began to focus on acting. Not least because it was an industry with a high salary. At least if you had talent and could land the roles. It was a choice that was probably driven by his stepbrother's $50,000 paycheck for starring in a commercial. Money was definitely an attraction for the young DiCaprio, who had grown up in Los Angeles, if not in poverty, then with a single mother. So, money wasn't in abundance.

His grades weren't the best either. He dropped out of high school but managed to get a certificate for passing four subjects and thus possessing some academic knowledge.

As a teenager, he landed roles in TV commercials for everything from Matchbox cars to chewing gum and Apple Jacks (an American breakfast cereal). From there, things kind of stalled. He faithfully showed up for more than 100 auditions. What a waste of effort: He didn't land any TV commercials or real roles. It took some personal contacts before the doors opened to the young Leonardo DiCaprio. Just like so many other actors. But in his case, it took almost a year and a half before he got lucky.

The two films he made in 1993 also meant that the world began to notice the handsome Los Angeles boy. He won the National Board of Review Award and was nominated for both a Golden Globe Award and an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor. At just 19 years old, he was the seventh youngest actor ever to be nominated for an Oscar.

And so, we arrive at the 1997 film Titanic, arguably the movie that has left the biggest mark in history. It was the movie that transformed DiCaprio from a competent actor to a superstar. Vanity Fair magazine described him and Kate Winslet as 'Hollywood's most iconic couple since Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman'. Overnight, he became a global teen idol. An image he has since worked hard to distance himself from.

"Titanic was one thing I wanted to try. But it wasn't to be able to say, 'Now it's my turn to be the biggest young movie star in the world.' That wasn't my intention. It was a choice to get a completely different type of work experience, a thing in my career that I wanted to try at least once, and it just happened to be a mega-success - and suddenly that's what people associated me with. But that's fine. I love the movie and I'm definitely reaping the benefits," he told British newspaper The Independent.

But it's rare for critics to slam DiCaprio's movies. And in the last 20 years, he's had the luck and skill to become one of Hollywood's biggest stars. This has happened with films like Gangs of New York (2002), The Aviator (2004), Django Unchained (2012) and not least The Revenant (2015). The latter film earned him the coveted Oscar for Best Actor in 2016.

It was also the movie that really brought him into the spotlight of major directors. Directors like Martin Scorsese, Christopher Nolan, Steven Spielberg and Ridley Scott.

Working with Martin Scorsese in particular has had a career-defining impact on Leonardo DeCaprio. Not least because, after achieving stardom with Titanic, he developed a real fear of starring in big budget films due to the hype and huge marketing campaigns that came with it. He describes his collaboration with Scorsese as 'dreamlike', while Scorsese, on the other hand, particularly praises his ability to show great emotion in a believable and consistent way on the big screen. Their collaboration is at least as significant as Scorsese's much celebrated collaboration with Robert De Niro.

Author Michael K. Hammond has written that DiCaprio has consolidated his stardom through an ability to act in a way where he manages to hide the actor and fully immerse himself in his role. And The Hollywood Reporter has described him as a rare actor who has never had to voice a cartoon, star in some family film or jump into an already popular movie series. He has essentially become a brand in his own right.

A difficult road

But his path to stardom hasn't always been easy. In fact, he was known as a bit of a rebel who had a hard time controlling himself during filming. Rumor has it that in his youth, he was once expelled from a movie set because of his behavior. And as a young man in the 90s, he was associated with a group of male celebrities known as The Pussy Posse. An article in The New York Times described them as a 'group of men whose sole purpose was to chase girls, pick fights and not tip waitresses'.

But firm instruction and the fact that he matured with age meant that he got his career under control. Even if he can still be a little unpredictable. As Meryl Streep said of him after filming Marvin's Room (1996): "He has the kind of unpredictability that makes his career hard to classify, his life uncertain and his work exciting." No wonder he is now considered one of America's greatest and most important actors.

Most recently, he received high praise for his performance in the film Killers of the Flower Moon (2023), which stars two people who are both important to his career, Robert De Niro and Martin Scorsese.

The result is a brilliant movie in which Leonardo DiCaprio is praised for unfolding as a true character actor.

DiCaprio the activist

As early as 1998, Leonard DiCaprio became convinced that climate change is the biggest concern of our time. Since his youth, he has been concerned with environmental disasters such as the deforestation of the world's rainforests and the extinction of animal species. This led him to found The Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation, which aims to raise environmental awareness, although with countless donations to worthy causes, he could easily carry the title of Active Environmental Celebrity. As recently as 2016, he donated 15.6 million dollars to animal protection and Native American rights. But this hasn't come without criticism. He also owns a private jet and a yacht, which has led some to call him hypocritical. But that doesn't change the fact that he has tried to make a difference through his foundation and active participation in environmental work. This is one of the reasons why he has been asked to speak at global UN climate summits on several occasions. He also had the courage to defy former President Donald Trump when he tried to roll back US environmental and climate policy in 2017.

Single – so far ...

On the personal front, no woman has yet managed to get him legally married. And if someone someday does, it's unlikely to be a big church wedding: He describes himself as an agnostic.

A skeptic who sees no definitive proof of the existence of God. Almost atheistic.

But that doesn't mean he's been celibate. The year after his success in Titanic, he met Brazilian supermodel Gisele Bündchen, whom he dated until 2005. Since then, he has been seen with a string of models. But as he approaches his round birthday at the end of the year, he is now single again. Of course, the American tabloids are full of rumors and innuendo.

He proclaimed himself 'King of the World' 27 years ago, but perhaps it's only now that he's really coming into his own and living up to the title. Both on the silver screen and in his private life.