DiCaprio talks Avatar and current projects

Posted on February 9, 2010
Filed Under Actors, Directors

With all this buzz on “Avatar,” it now being the highest grossing movie of all time, it’s kind of interesting to hear what Leonardo DiCaprio has to say on the subject (with him playing the lead in “Titanic“, the film that “Avatar” steamrolled). INQUIRER.net recently had a little sit down with Leo, talking about his current projects and his feelings on the whole highest-grossing-movie thing.

“First off, I congratulate those guys,” he said of “Avatar” director, James Cameron, and his team. “I didn’t really pay attention to all that until I read the headlines,” the actor admitted. “Hats off to them. I hope they make triple what ‘Titanic’ made. I was blessed to have ‘Titanic’ get financing because my name was attached to it. The movie had its run. And, new records will be broken. Time goes on. The rest of cinema will unfold before our eyes. I am a fan of ‘Avatar,’ and I thought it was great. As an audience member, I had a unique experience.”

Since “Titanic,” Leo continues to grow as an actor. His creative partnership with Martin Scorsese has given us four films: “Gangs of New York,” “The Aviator,” “The Departed,” and now, the thriller, “Shutter Island.” Asked about being the “muse” of Scorsese, Leonardo answered, “To have a mentor like Martin, who gave me a perspective on film as an art form, is great. These films are like his dreams. You learn a lot just by working with him. He never sits you down and gives you a lesson. It’s about being on the journey with him.”

Leonardo got to work with another gifted director, Christopher Nolan, in “Inception,” one of this year’s most anticipated films. “‘Inception’ is Chris delving into dream psychoanalysis and, at the same time, making a high-octane, surreal film that came from his mind. He wrote the entire thing, and it all made sense to him. It didn’t make sense to many of us when we were doing it. We had to do a lot of detective work (laughing) to figure out what the movie was about.”

Leonardo is definitely building an interesting filmography. He has said yes to an untitled movie project on the Vikings, with Mel Gibson as the director.“There’s no script yet,” he disclosed. “Mel is a visionary. He has created some unbelievable worlds. What he did in ‘Apocalypto’ and ‘The Passion of the Christ’—he’s quite unique, so we’ll see what happens. I’m excited to see the outcome.”

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