Why Leonardo DiCaprio Still Gets Nervous Around Robert De Niro

Leonardo DiCaprio admitted on Good Morning America Tuesday that he still gets nervous acting opposite Robert De Niro. The two actors are currently starring opposite one another in Martin Scorcese’s true-crime epic Killers of the Flower Moon. DiCaprio spoke to GMA’s Chris Connelly to promote the film alongside Lily Gladstone, who plays his wife in the film.

Despite this being DiCaprio’s third time acting opposite De Niro, after 1993’s This Boy’s Life and 1996’s Marvin’s Room, the Revenant Oscar winner admitted that didn’t stop him from feeling intimidated on the Flower Moon set.

“For sure, for sure,” DiCaprio responded when asked if his hands were shaking when he acted opposite the Taxi Driver star in 1993. “They were a little bit on this one,” Gladstone said, lightly ribbing her co-star. “I remember that.”

“It’s Robert De Niro,” DiCaprio explained. “I did my first major role in a movie with Robert De Niro, and exactly 30 years later I'm getting to work with him again. [We’re] also doing a version of that movie, you know, of the sort of abused stepchild whose father figure has a mental control over him and is abusive.”

Killers of the Flower Moon stars DiCaprio as simple-minded Ernest Burkhart, who’s persuaded by his mafioso-style uncle, William “King” Hale (De Niro), to marry into the family of Mollie Kyle (Gladstone) in order to systematically murder her relatives and gain access to their oil.

As DiCaprio noted, the film has more than a few echoes of This Boy’s Life in its depiction of Ernest and King’s fraught relationship. In both pictures, the relationship culminates in grandiose sequences of physical violence. In the 1993 film, DiCaprio and De Niro destroy a kitchen during a knock-down fight; in Scorsese’s picture, De Niro forces DiCaprio to assume a prone position before furiously paddling his backside as punishment for a perceived slight.

DiCaprio admitted to Connelly that inhabiting that dynamic again was surprisingly easy, even after all these years, due to his natural deference to De Niro.

“It felt like home,” DiCaprio said. “It felt like I was coming home. It felt like an intrinsic part of my childhood and I fit right into those shoes.”

It seems there was more than a little intergenerational tension on the set of Scorsese’s latest film. These most recent remarks from DiCaprio come after Scorsese admitted that he and De Niro would “roll our eyes” at the younger actor’s “endless, endless, endless” improvisations.

"Every now and then, Bob and I would look at each other and roll our eyes a little bit,” Scorsese told The Wall Street Journal last month. “And we’d tell [DiCaprio], ‘You don’t need that dialogue.’”

Killers of the Flower Moon is currently playing in theaters. Apple Studios’ critically acclaimed film is their most expensive to date, bearing a $200 million production cost. It’s expected to premiere on Apple TV+ next month. Jesse Plemons, Pat Healy, and a much-discussed Brendan Fraser also star in the film.



from Men's Journal https://ift.tt/PwJ1y8E

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