Leonardo DiCaprio reveals what he learned from Daniel Day-Lewis

and uh obviously your co-star in this movie Daniel de Lewis um he was in retirement at the time yes he was how did you guys get him out we were talking about who is going to play this incredible role of Bill the Butcher and um few names came up and somebody said may have been Marty who said what about Daniel and people immediately said well he's retired he's not he's a cobbler he's making movie making shoes in Italy so still sounds so uh it was actually my job to really to go uh speak with him because I think that uh he was it was this kind of thing between both both of them had worked together uh you know previously on um on um Age of Innocence of course and uh but he had he' stopped acting so um scors he actually said to me look I I'm not sure how Daniel feels if he's ready to work or not you know you're another actor you should you know have a conversation with him and sus it out and I'll never forget you know meeting him in New York I went to his Brownstone sort of knocked on the door and and he said and he opened the door he goes hi Hi how are you and I go hi nice to meet you lonardo Daniel he goes should we walk I go okay and we started we started walking through Central Park and he didn't say anything to me for the first couple minutes so I said all right I'm not going to say anything to him either so we kind of walked in silence which for about 10 minutes through Central Park never met one another and just walked it was incredibly surreal and I just said to myself I'm going to wait till he's ready to speak finally middle of Central Park he finds a bench and goes that looks good would you like to sit we sat down and we started talking about acting and you know he and I so I immediately asked him I said look you know there's the role of a of a gangster in the turn of the century New York who's a butcher who carries butcher knives with a top hat and a mustache and a Martin scorsi movie who in the right mind wouldn't want to do this and he's like he said Leo you have to understand it's not about not about wanting to work with him on a film like this Marty is the reason that I became an actor I saw mean streets and that film was so raw and incredible and made me you know inspired to act and I don't want to be of disservice to him and I said well I'm I'm sure that we can figure something out you know and and so it was like this slow sort of conversation that we had and uh we went out to dinner a few times it was actually uh Toby who said to him you know I think it's when somebody has a talent like that like yours yeah it's almost their responsibility to to uh to do it you know to to get back in the saddle and I think he slightly disagreed at first but eventually thank thank God he said yes and I got to work with somebody who was a huge huge another huge influence on uh on on on myself as an actor I mean I didn't there was there's there's commitment in and then there's Daniel de leis please tell me Toby told him that with great power comes great responsibility please he didn't quite say that but but I remember the first day I mean we developed this for a while we were there for months they built all these sets in chinah studios I mean we had the Five Points it was like it was the most unbelievable set ever because you walked into a world and you submerged yourself back in time they built a Warf they built a Chinese pagota entire neighborhood the five where all the Five Points got together and I remember you know walking around this crazy set and then we're working on this script constantly every day and then it was like two days before we started shooting and you know we've been saying hi Daniel hi hi Marty you know good morning stuff like that and Daniel just kind of I kind of walked by and he and Daniel went Daniel looked I I said morning Danel he went I said oh game on game okay I didn't say I don't think I don't think I said another word to him to the nine months that we were there we we uh it was just you know he was Bill the Butcher and that was it he was Bill the Butcher and uh you know and uh was only until the last day of re-shoot that we kind of looked at each other and laughed you know and like cracked a smile I mean it obviously works for him whatever he's doing do you do you think you could do that though yeah yeah I mean I I've done that to a certain degree myself but you know I think to each his own and I think that you know his level of commitment is just so absolute and he goes home you know he goes home in character but you know to a certain degree I'm sure he has to kiss his child and his wife and go to bed but you know it's it's that that kind of level of commitment was inspiring again for me I mean his I mean he was just phenomenal and in character all the time and you know again that I think as an actor being able to witness that and seeing the sort of heights of commitment like that was another stage of of learning for me um

Channel: Talent Agency Guide

Views: 850,282

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Id: UyO6RncUNw8

Length: 5min 41sec (341 seconds)

Published: Fri Dec 29 2023