Leonardo Wilhelm DiCaprio Born on November 11, 1974 in Los Angeles (California, USA). His parents are hippies, his mother is German, his father was a comic book artist. His parents separated immediately after his birth: he lived with his mother in a poor neighborhood of Los Angeles and until now, having already become a professional film actor, listens to her advice. Leonardo DiCaprio has Slavic roots (his grandmother is from Russian emigrants who settled in Germany). Leonardo DiCaprio belongs to the constellation of the youngest Hollywood celebrities, his star lit up in the international sky after the success of the film "Romeo and Juliet" (at the 1997 Berlin festival, the actor received the prize for the best performance of a male role), and "Titanic" raised his ego to the top of popularity. For the first time, Leonardo DiCaprio appeared on the big screen in 1991 in the film "Zubastiki-3", portraying a teenage boy. In 1993, he played the main role of Toba in the film "The Life of this Guy", according to critics, the young DiCaprio beat Robert De Niro himself, who played the role of Toba's cruel stepfather. A surprise for many was the nomination of 19-year-old DiCaprio for an Oscar for his supporting role in the film "What's Up with Gilbert Grape." He brilliantly played a teenager who closed in on himself after the death of his father. In order to create an accurate image of a mentally ill boy, DiCaprio watched the mentally ill in a special hospital for several weeks. In subsequent films, Leonardo DiCaprio varies a similar type of young man - a teenager entering the adult world, unknown and even hostile to him. His characters, not finding the understanding of others, are either oppressed and depressed, or behave defiantly. Such is Jim Carroll, a talented basketball player addicted to drugs, in "Basketball Notes" or 17-year-old Hank, suffering from the absence of his father and the heartlessness of his mother, in the movie "Marvin's Room". The role of the French poet Arthur Rimbaud in Agnieszka Holland's film stands out "Total eclipse" (1995). "Total eclipse" provoked controversial responses, and for the first time the young actor received a critical assessment, mainly due to the general concept of the authors who showed the story of the personal psychological relationship of the two great poets Verlaine and Rimbaud, completely excluding from it everything related to their art. And DiCaprio plays, first of all, not an innovative poet, but an eccentric young man, arrogant and hysterical, who likes to shock society and who completely subordinates Verlaine, who is in love with him. Leonardo DiCaprio rarely appears in a purely genre movie, although he feels confident in a cowboy suit in the western "The Quick and the Dead", where he got thanks to Sharon Stone, who read him a big future. The star was not mistaken, as it confirmed DiCaprio's huge popularity, especially among young viewers, after the release of "Romeo and Juliet". Here everything happily came together - the intention of the Australian director Baz Luhrmann (the author of the musical film "In the Ballroom") to give an ultra-youthful reading of Shakespeare's classic tragedy, the contemporary aesthetics of the film with its clip style of filming and the personality of the actor - a young man of today with his crazy musical rhythms, in which violence pulsates. Leonardo DiCaprio plays his Romeo in one breath — easily and very emotionally. An ordinary boy from the motley and bright as a mess of the world of Verona Beach, which is somewhere on the border with Latin America, a world inflamed by enmity and intoxicated by drugs, love turns into a poet, it is not for nothing that Shakespeare's lines sound so naturally in his mouth. Romeo, completely caught up in his passion for Juliet, tries in vain to break the chain of violence; the actor shows how the hero's ego is more and more overcome by despair — and in the end, only by death can he protect his love and prove that it is above everything else. The light of the image of Romeo lies in DiCaprio's next work - the role of a self-taught artist in love in J. Cameron's "Titanic", which brought the actor a colossal success. As if in a hurry to take advantage of the growing interest of the public in the new star, Leonardo DiCaprio is invited to star in the next version of the adventure film "The Man in the Iron Mask" (USA - France) - in two roles at once: the young King Louis and his twin brother. Leonardo DiCaprio himself, who is compared to James Dean, the idol of the 50s, believes that he has not yet fully mastered the craft of an actor, realizing that his creative potential is far from being revealed. PRIZES AND AWARDS Oscar Award (2015): Best Actor ("Survivor")
