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CLICK ON THE PICTURE TO GO TO LEONARDO DI CAPRIO'S OFFICIAL WEBSITE

BIOGRAPHY

Born in Hollywood, California on November 11, 1974, Leonardo attended Seeds University Elementary School at UCLA where he also took summer courses in performance art before moving on to the Center for Enriched Studies in Los Angeles. After CES, the next step was to enroll at John Marshall High School in the Los Feliz area of Los Angeles. Having been exposed to the world of art from an early age, Leonardo was instilled with the sense that creativity was a hugely important and beneficial thing for the human mind.

Always drawn towards performing, Leonardo started auditioning for parts in 1988, at the age of fourteen and appeared in a series of commercials and educational films. From that point he navigated a gradual hill up the acting chain. From bit parts on soap operas, to bubble gum commercials, the first "regular" gig was on the series "Parenthood," which lasted one season.

The following year, 1991, realizing any actor needs a film credit under his belt for future big screen work, Leonardo was cast in the B-grade feature, "Critters III." Before the year was out, he was invited to join the cast of the hit ABC sitcom, "Growing Pains," playing the role of Luke, a troubled homeless boy taken in by the Seavers.

By this time, our young actor had run the gamut of T.V and commercial spots and wanted to pursue film acting. The break came in 1992 when Michael Caton-Jones cast Leonardo in the much sought after role of Tobias Wolff in his big-screen adaptation of Wolff's best selling novel "This Boy's Life." Co-staring alongside Robert DeNiro and Ellen Barkin, "This Boy's Life," continues to be one of Leo's favorite acting experiences.

Later in 1993, Swedish director Lasse Hallstrom cast the young DiCaprio in the role of Arnie for the critically acclaimed film "What's Eating Gilbert Grape?" His performance was extraordinary and earned him an Academy Award Nomination for Best Supporting Actor in 1994 at the age of nineteen. The next year, 1995, found Leonardo playing opposite Sharon Stone and Gene Hackman in Sam Raimi's deliriously stylish meditation on the Old West in "The Quick and the Dead." Later that same year, he starred in the adaptation of Jim Carroll's gritty autobiographical memoir, "The Basketball Diaries." He then went on to portray the doomed and deeply troubled pansexual poet, Arthur Rimbaud in Agnieszka Holland's film version of Christopher Hampton's play "Total Eclipse."

As one half of the star struck lovers in Australian director Baz Luhrmann's screen-adaptation of William Shakespeare's ultimate love story "Romeo and Juliet," Leonardo was paired with rising star Claire Danes in this strangely anachronistic, contemporary updating of the story, set in a neo-modern Verona Beach. He was also featured that same year as Meryl Streep's delinquent-to-the-point-of-criminal son in "Marvin's Room," another adaptation of a play. Sandwiched between the brilliant performances of Streep and Diane Keaton, Leonardo also had the opportunity to work again with Robert DeNiro, whose TriBeca Films produced the movie.

In late 1996, Leonardo signed on to star in James Cameron's "Titanic." With the biggest budget in film history and box office success far from a sure thing, the decision to do Titanic was a risky one. However, it paid off when the movie became the highest grossing of all time, transforming Leonardo's life forever.
Next up, Leonardo starred in "The Man in the Iron Mask" which shot in France with Gerard Depardieu, Gabriel Byrne, Jeremy Irons and John Malkovich. Owning the #1 position on the top ten box office list for the better part of the first half of 1998 with "Titanic," he virtually knocked himself out of the top spot with "The Man in the Iron Mask."

Legendary director Woody Allen cast Leonardo in his typically untitled "Fall Project," ultimately titled "Celebrity," in which he received highly favorable reviews for his satirical work as a young, out of control movie star.

Growing up on the eastside of Los Angeles, Leonardo wanted to give back to his community, donating a room full of computers and equipment to the new Los Feliz Library, built on the site of his childhood home. There are commemorative placards and curious fans are welcome at the library.

In 1999, Leonardo filmed Danny Boyle's screen adaptation of the best selling novel "The Beach" by Alex Garland. The film was shot entirely on location in Thailand and marked Leonardo's first starring role since "Titanic." Once he got back to the States, he started mulling for a new project and joined with one of his most admired directors, Martin Scorsese.

Aside from film-acting, Leo's passion for environmental awareness began to play a big role in his life. Finally in an influential position to make a difference in the name of the planet, he was invited to chair Earth Day 2000. In a special on the deterioration of the ozone level, he also interviewed President Bill Clinton. Leonardodicaprio.org is now devoted to helping the environment on a world wide level.
Leonardo stars in Martin Scorsese's "Gangs of New York" co-starring Cameron Diaz, Daniel Day Lewis and Liam Neeson. It is Miramax's biggest feature to date and wrapped in April, 2001. The period piece is due out in Christmas of 2001. While deciding on future projects, Leonardo will be devoting more and more time to environmental causes.

(Source : www.leonardodicaprio.com)






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Profile and Biography

(Source : www.planethollywood.com)


Birth Name: Leonardo Wilhelm DiCaprio
Birth Date: November 11, 1974
Birthplace: Hollywood, CA
Star Sign: Sun in Scorpio, Moon in Libra
Occupation: Actor
Education: Center for Enriched Studies and John Marshall High School (Los Angeles, CA)
1998: Blockbuster Entertainment Award -- Favorite Actor, Drama (Titanic)
Height: 6' 0"
Nickname: Leo
Pets: Rottweiler (named Baby); Bearded Dragon (named Lizard)
Favorite Bands: Pink Floyd; The Beatles; Led Zeppelin

Father: George (of Italian descent)
Mother: Irmelin (of German descent)
Fiance: Gisele Bundchen (Model)
Siblings: Adam Farrar (Step-brother)

Awards
2000: Rudolph Valentino Award
1998: MTV Movie Award -- Best Male Performance (Titanic)
1997: Berlin International Film Award -- Best Actor (Romeo + Juliet)
1997: Blockbuster Entertainment Award -- Favorite Actor, Romance (Romeo + Juliet)
1994: Chicago Film Critics Association Award -- Most Promising Actor (What's Eating Gilbert Grape?)
1993: National Board of Review Award -- Best Supporting Actor (Whats Eating Gilbert Grape?)
1993: New Generation Award from the Los Angeles Film Critics Association

Talk about a movie career that really floats! The world has seldom witnessed the kind of hoopla that attended the unprecedented success of Leo's 1997 star turn in Titanic. Not since teenagers wailed for The Beatles has there been such an unabashed outpouring of adoration for a single actor. Leos superstardom, attained at such a young age, might have derailed a less grounded individual. But like Kate Winslet on that piece of floating wreckage, DiCaprio has navigated the dangerous shoals like a real pro. And hes only just begun.
DiCaprio was born in Hollywood, California to Irmelin and George DiCaprio on November 11, 1974. He attended Seeds University Elementary School at UCLA, where he studied performance art, before moving on to the Center for Enriched Studies in Los Angeles.

After appearing in commercial and educational films, Leonardo joined the cast of the ABC sitcom, Growing Pains in 1991. In 1993, Leonardo was cast in the much sought-after role of Tobias Wolff in his big-screen adaptation of Wolff's best-selling novel This Boy's Life where he starred alongside Robert De Niro and Ellen Barkin. Later on that year, Swedish director Lasse Hallstrom directed Leonardo in the role of Arnie for the critically acclaimed film What's Eating Gilbert Grape? His performance earned him an Academy Award Nomination for Best Supporting Actor in 1994.

Leonardo played opposite Sharon Stone and Gene Hackman in Sam Raimi's meditation on the Old West in The Quick and the Dead in 1995. That same year, he starred in the adaptation of Jim Carroll's gritty autobiographical memoir, The Basketball Diaries. He then went on to portray the doomed and deeply troubled pansexual French poet, Arthur Rimbaud in the film version of the play Total Eclipse.

As one half of the star-struck lovers in Australian director Baz Luhrmann's screen-adaptation of William Shakespeare's ultimate love story Romeo + Juliet, DiCaprio was paired with rising-star Claire Danes in this contemporary updating of the story, set in a neo-modern Verona Beach. DiCaprio was also featured that same year as Meryl Streep's delinquent son in Marvin's Room. Co-starring with highly acclaimed actresses Streep and Diane Keaton, DiCaprio also had the opportunity to work again with De Niro, whose TriBeca Films produced the movie.

In late 1996, DiCaprio signed on to star in James Cameron's Titanic. The film went on to win eleven Academy Awards and ultimately became the highest grossing film in history. Following Titanic, Leonardo starred in The Man in the Iron Mask which shot in France with Gerard Depardieu, Gabriel Byrne, Jeremy Irons and John Malkovich. Leonardo owned the #1 position on the top-ten box-office list for the better part of the first half of 1998 with Titanic and knocked himself out with his role in The Man in the Iron Mask, which quickly moved into the #1 spot. In early 2000, Leonardo portrayed an American back-packer searching for paradise in The Beach, based on the bestseller of the same title.

An active environmentalist, Leonardo served as chairman of Earth Day 2000, which culminated in a rally on the National Mall in Washington, DC attended by hundreds of thousands. He also hosted an ABC 20/20 Special, "Earth 2000."

In 2001, DiCaprio broke the hearts of girls everywhere when his engagement to Brazilian supermodel Gisele Bundchen was announced.

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Good Morning America

Leonardo DiCaprio

Good Morning America's Joel Siegel chats with the young star about his dashing performance in the most expensive movie ever made

LEONARDO DICAPRIO stars in James Cameron's Titanic as Jack Dawson, a cocky bohemian who wins his ticket onto the big boat in a card game. Dawson's ill-fated romance with a wealthy passenger (Kate Winslet) does more than pass the time between special effects: it gives DiCaprio his most likable character yet.




Great performance. The second I saw you I liked that guy. I really liked that character.

It was interesting because I've traditionally played characters that have been tortured in some aspect, whether it be by love, or drugs, or whatever, but this guy was like an open book. He was an open-hearted guy with no demons, and it was more of a challenge than I ever thought it would be.

How much of you is in that character. Are you like that character?

I would like to be like that character. I mean, Jack sort of embodies a lot of things that I think we all find admirable. Like a bohemian that lives life day to day, finds his own sort of happiness. You try to be like that. I wish . . . I think I do have some of those aspects, but he's almost like the kind of guy we all wish to be.

When they [Jack and Rose] see each other, all [the audience wants] is for these two people to be together.

It's interesting. I mean, that's what initially attracted me, more so than even the dynamic of what the Titanic meant to the world. And what the sort of story the Titanic was, was this love story. And when the ship goes down it's like their whole world coming to a halt.

How difficult were the action sequences,the water sequences? It's got to be cold.

It was cold. There was a gigantic sort of tank that the interior of the Titanic was in, and it was on hydraulics. So it basically has a level of sea water to it and whenever he wanted corridors to be flooded with sea
water he'd tip the hydraulics on it. And the water would come rushing in. It was always like a new sort of roller-coaster ride to jump into. Granted, after the fiftieth or sixtieth time doing it, it becomes tedious. But the initial excitement of doing it for the first time was cool.

Lots of wrinkles on your fingers.

Oh, for sure. I remember a scene toward the ending where the ship goes straight up and it's completely bobbing up and down in the water and we're at the top of it. And looking up and seeing like fifteen gigantic cranes moving around and we're on this hydraulic poop deck and below us we see like thirty stuntmen on bungee cords. Kate and I looked at each other and said "How did we get here?"

When you see it on the screen, you see a lot of things on the screen that were not happening really because a lot of stuff was computer-generated. Are you awestruck by the effects?

Oh, when I first saw it, there's a whole sort of world that goes on while you're doing your stuff and I didn't want to focus on what was going on. Otherwise I would have been overwhelmed. I needed to do just what I
needed to do. And make this character as real as possible. And concentrate on our little story that was going on. And then we actually see the ship cracking in half right in front of you. And it looks more real than anything. It looks like you're there.

One of the most powerful shots for me in the whole movie was a panning shot with Kate Winslet's character, Rose, in the water sort of paddling and it pulls back to reveal like a marathon of over a thousand people just screaming and trying to survive hypothermia. It touched me.

Working with Kate Winslet. There's real chemistry there, chemistry on the screen.


I hope so. I mean, we have it in real life. I think she's such a terrific girl. It's unbelievable. We were such good friends throughout this whole movie. We were almost joined at the hip. Everything that we wanted to
complain about, we did it with each other, rather than doing it on set, and we got it all out in the open in our trailers. She's such a solid actress, and she possesses so much strength on-screen, it's unbelievable. And I think she's gonna be one of our best.

When this opened in Tokyo at the Tokyo film festival, you were in Tokyo.

Yeah.

And I read that you had special entrances and exits and theJapanese girls were all over you. How do you relate to things like that?

I sort of have always realized that there's always sort of a new prettyface and you--you definitely want to be remembered for your workrather than being sort of the hunk-of-the-month type of deal. That's whatI've always aimed for. I don't know how long whatever is gonna last. It's like something that I don't expect is gonna stay around forever. What you want is your work to speak for itself. And as far as these fans areconcerned, I like it. It's great to get that kind of attention, but it's also strange at the same time because you don't know many of these people individually. You know what I mean? You have your people in your life which is people that influence you. But it almost becomes surreal and unrealistic because most of the people you don't really know. So it's hard to feel a lot from it, you know.

Have you had to give up things that you like to do?

Not quite yet. I mean definitely it's bordering on that. But I think no matter what I'm gonna continue to try and do the things that I did before even if it's a little more difficult. I just have to do it. I can't be confined to
my house.

What are you gonna do next? How do you top the Titanic?

I don't expect to. I mean, I did a film over the summer called The Man in the Iron Mask with John Malkovich and Jeremy Irons and Gerard Depardieu and Gabriel Byrne and that was unbelievable, working with those guys. I mean it's so cool with working people in that caliber because they're so relaxed about everything. They're almost like children in a sense; it's fun for them at this point. And it was totally cool working on that. But for now, after that movie, I'm taking a long time off.

(Source : http://mrshowbiz.go.com)

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Name: Leonardo DiCaprio
Birth Name: Leonardo Wilhelm DiCaprio
Height: 6'
Sex: M
Nationality: American
Date: November 11 1974
Birth Place: Hollywood California
Occupation: actor
Education: Center for Enriched Studies Los Angeles
John Marshall High School Los Angeles
Relationship: Gisele Bundchen (Brazilian model) Kristen Zang (model; together from 1996 to 1997) Vanessa Hayden (model)
Father: George DiCaprio (comic-book distributor)
Mother: Irmeline DiCaprio (former legal secretary)
Sister: Adam (former actor)
Grand Mother: Helena Idenbirken
Claim to fame: as Toby in This Boy's Life (1993)

(Source : www.celebritywonder.com)

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Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes



Patrick Stoner: "Universal" is the word we use for Shakespeare. That is, what he wrote 400 years ago still speaks to us today. Do you think that Romeo and Juliet falls into that category?
Leonardo DiCaprio: I absolutely do. The themes of the play are very relevant to today. Two young people raised in an atmosphere of hate, who find love in the midst of it. I wasn't sure at first that it WOULD relate, but when I got more involved in the project and realized how everything fit the times we're living in, it all seemed to fit.

Claire Danes: Well, Shakespeare had a powerful grasp on human nature. The story is about young love AND it's about a society that is so corrupt, and so chaotic, and so violent that you have a lost generation.

Stoner: Sounds familiar, doesn't it?

Danes: Yeah, it does. And everyone is always saying that our society is degenerating into a pile of mush, and Shakespeare paints a picture of a society that's grappling with all of that hundreds of years ago.

DiCaprio: Yeah, and in this society you have to realize that you can be picked off at any time. So, Romeo is a kind of rebel -- he rebels against his family, because he resents being raised in an atmosphere of hate, and he rebels against his peers, because their only response to hate is more hate, more violence. It's all very relevant.

Stoner: What about YOUR peers? Do you have any advice for young people?

DiCaprio: As a matter of fact, I do. It's this whole drug thing. It's very upsetting. You see people who have this tremendous need to find a different reality, and drugs seem to be the easiest way to do that. It's certainly not the answer though; it's a trap. I've seen this with my friends, in my personal life. Even if you have to run away from everything -- your friends, whatever -- it's just not the thing to do. There's no way out. I hate to say "Don't do it," because I know that doesn't usually work. But I can tell anyone, it's just no good.

(Source : whyy.org)

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Full name: Leonardo Wilhem DiCaprio
Birthdate: November 11, 1974
Mom and Dad's names: Irmelin (mom) and George (dad)
Sign: Scorpio (Scorpios and Cancers are a true cosmic match and I'm a Cancer)
Birthplace: Hollywood, CA
First Job In Show Biz: Commercial for Matchbox cars
Height: About 6 feet tall
Weight: 140 lbs
Shoe size: 11
Hair: Blonde
Eyes: Blue
Mom and Dad: Irmelin and George DiCaprio
Girlfriend: He claims he's been with a "non-celebrity" girlfriend for two years. But, everyone says he's with model Amber Valetta. He dated model, Kristen Zang, for over a year.
Car: Silver BMW Coupe
Pet: a bearded lizard named Blitz. He used to have a Rottweiler named Baby and a dog, Rocky, but he died 2 years ago.
He got his name from kicking his mom while she was pregnant with him as she was looking at a Leonardo DaVinci painting.
An agent wanted to change his name to Lenny Williams! Yuck! The reason, because Leonardo DiCaprio sounded "too ethninc."
Leo's Favs
Book: The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemmingway
Food: Pasta, cheeseburger, fries w/lots of ketchup, Diet Coke, Fuitopia, and lemonade
Colors: Black, Purple, and Green
Movie: The "Godfather" trilogy
Actor: Robert DeNiro, Jack Nicholson, and Al Pacino
Actress: Meg Ryan
Music: The Beatles, Led Zepplin, Sugar Hill Ganga, Pink Floyd, and Harry Connick, Jr.
Sports: Baseball and Basketball
Place: New York and San Francisco
Song: "Sittin on the Dock of the Bay"
Gym: Hollywood's Gold Gym where he worksout on the Pilates machines
Salon: Prive Salon in L.A. is where he gets his hair colored
House: Decorated with lepoard skin and black leather in Los Feliz, CA. He moved out just recently into a small bungalow pad in Santa Monica, CA.
Clubs: Bash (Miami), Tunnel (NY), Life (NY), Sky Barfly (L.A.), Millenium (L.A.), and Viper Room (L.A.)
Vacation Spot: Germany and Canada
Cities: San Francisco, New York, and Port-au-Prince
Shopping: In L.A. he likes to go to Fred Segal and in NY it's Prada, Mossimo, and Barney's.
Shoes: Black Doc Martens. Size 11. Hmm...
His parachute didn't open the first time he went sky diving! He had to freefall until the backup chute opened!

Did you know...
~Leo does his best to never miss a Lakers game?
~Sharon Stone gave up part of her salary to get Leo casted in "The Quick and the Dead" ?
~Leo prefers BRUNETTES because there are more of them?!?!
~His name means "bold lion" ?
~Leo's nickname is school was Leonardo Retardo?
~As a 23 year old actor, he gets paid an average of $5 mil. per movie? He gets 1% of the profits Titanic earns! He is loaded now!

If you want to write Leo fan mail send it to the following:
Leonardo DiCaprio
c/o Rick York
Addis-Wechsler
955 South Carrilo Drive, Suite 300
Los Angeles, CA 90048

Leonardo DiCaprio
c/o Cindy/Guagent/Baker/Winkur/Ryder
405 South Beverly Drive, 5th floor
Beverly Hills, CA 90212
USA

Leonardo DiCaprio
c/o Caa
9830 Whilshire Blvd.
Beverly Hills, CA 90212
USA

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Chris Connelly: What are you listening to? I want to know what CDs you brought here.

Leonardo DiCaprio: I didn't bring any CDs here.

MTV: Nothing?

LD: I'm trying to think what's my latest. I buy CDs, and they always get scratched up and lost, and then you have to buy them over and over and over and over again. So I just bought, you know, Bill Withers and Stevie Wonder, which I have bought, like, 30 times. But like, nothing new, man.

MTV: You've got to stop using them as drink coasters. You don't have the O.D.B. record? You don't have the new DMX record?

LD: I have all these, yeah. Absolutely, yeah.

MTV: Kicking them hard?

LD: But I didn't buy those last.

MTV: [Laughs] All sounds good. So why this movie? You could have made any movie in the universe, practically. Why was this the story you wanted to tell right now?

LD: A lot of reasons. You know, it's something I really connected with in a weird way. I love the theme of the movie. I love what it was trying to say about society nowadays and how everything's sort of become Westernized, and we're so saturated with all this digital information and media, and we can't escape it. The whole world is completely Americanized, essentially, and this character goes off in a real courageous way. He wants to escape all that and really get in touch with some sort of real emotion or do something on a real level. Whether it be dangerous or not, he finds this tropical pirate-like Utopia, which seems to be the answer to everything he's ever dreamed. And I really identified with that.


MTV: This is like a classical male story, isn't it? Just this story of the guy going out in search of the great...

LD: A great adventurer.

MTV: Did it touch you in that way too? Is it fun to make a movie that had a lot of maleness to it?

LD: A lot of maleness to it. [Laughs] No, absolutely, man. I love that this was a truly modern character, in a lot of different ways. I mean, not to speak about my generation or the generation before me or anything like that, but he really is a modern character. He's a true human being. He's constantly contradicting himself, and throughout the course of the movie he changes. He transforms into many different things, which I thought was really interesting.

MTV: And the movie sort of stirs up a lot of the traditions of romance or romantic films and then...

LD: Dismisses them.

MTV: Subverts them, very dramatically. Was that something that was really appealing to you?

LD: I love the fact that the film takes different directions too. It goes for something obvious and all of a sudden it goes in a completely different direction. Which I loved.


MTV: Had you been a fan of the book?

LD: Yeah, I read the book beforehand. I really loved it.

MTV: Were you worried about the way they sort of amped up the romantic aspect of your character from the book to the movie?

LD: No, I wasn't worried about it. I think the book was written in a way that it was almost like a journal of the way the guy's psyche... it was like his embodiment of this character named Daffy, who sort of represented all the negative parts of what paradise is. It would be hard to do the film just like the book, I think. I think that they had to take much firmer directions and make better... not better decisions, but more concrete decisions, character-wise, and compound some things.

MTV: When you were in Thailand, were you struck by the omnipresence of American popular culture? Does that seem a little weird, when you go that far afield?

LD: Yeah. I had no idea, especially reading the book the first time. The whole backpack culture that's out there. It's unbelievable. I mean, it's just like this pack of locusts, these tourists that go around the world and infiltrate these different cultures and try to get involved with them and be a part of them, and meanwhile they're just bringing everything from home to these different islands and making it a giant tourist vacation spot. Which is unbelievable. But I had no idea that there were so many tourists in Thailand that were still trying to live some sort of, you know, hippie life, nomadic existence. I had no idea until I read the book.


MTV: Was there any appeal for you to going that far away and trying to find a spot where your face was not as well known as it may be everywhere else in the Western world?

LD: No. [Laughs] No, that wasn't the appeal, but certainly being in Thailand and experiencing that whole culture, I thought was interesting. But more so than that, I was doing the story and working with Danny Boyle, who I thought was one of the most interesting filmmakers out there.

MTV: So what has the last two years been like for you? Can anyone aside from Michael Jordan understand what it's been like?

LD: [Laughs] It's been weird in a lot of ways, but you adapt. No matter what happens to you in life, on a small or large scale, you have to adapt to the circumstances that you're given, and that's what I have done, and it's been a huge learning process for me. It's focused me on a lot of different ways, more so than ever before, [on] not necessarily where I want to go, but how I want to do things. It's been strange at times, absolutely, but I wouldn't give it up for the world. I've honestly been blessed with the opportunities. I'm extremely thankful for that, and I wouldn't give it up for the anything.

MTV: You wouldn't give it up for anything?

LD: No, I wouldn't.

MTV: Just to be able to walk down the street?

LD: No, no, no, no. 'Cause I still do that! I still walk down the street.

MTV: [Laughs] You have a huge audience of young women who've loved your last two movies. Girls 13, 14, 15 years old. How do you feel about them, and how do you feel about them seeing this one?

LD: Well, I think it would be underestimating them as an audience and their intelligence to not think that an actor's not going to take different types of roles. This character is somebody that is neither a hero or villain, you what I mean? He's a human being that contradicts himself, and I think it's a great character to watch, to watch his transformation throughout the course of the movie. I think I'd be underestimating them if I were to go do the same thing over and over again.

MTV: Have you felt oppressed by their kind of affection for you, though? Have you felt hemmed in at all by the...

LD: At times, you get the fleeting thoughts of "Uh-oh," but no, no. No, because I've always known what I've wanted to do as an actor, and I wanted to take chances, and that's all. That's all I really wanted to do. "Titanic" was something that in its own right was a chance. It was something that I'd never done before, and it was trying to do something different, and it was experimenting in a lot of different ways. And it's not to say that I won't try something like that again, I don't know. But that was much more different than what I'm doing now.

MTV: What do you think the greatest misunderstanding about you is right now?

LD: Hmm. I don't know. Let me think about that. Maybe the fact that it upset me a little bit that during that whole year of, you know, [focusing on] the next project that I was going to do, that maybe I wasn't focused on my career. That I was sort of slacking off in a lot of different ways and just wanted to live it up and have a good time, when that certainly wasn't the case. It was just a matter of me truly finding something that I connected with project-wise and then giving that my all. And I think that kind of stuff may affect you in the long term, career-wise. If people have that perception of you. When that, for me, that's not the case whatsoever.

MTV: When you think about the projects you want to do, do you think in terms of the people you want to work with? A man like Martin Scorsese, or a guy like Danny Boyle?

LD: Absolutely. Absolutely. I mean, who wouldn't want to work with Martin Scorsese and Danny Boyle? But more so than that, it's connecting with the material and connecting with the character.

MTV: Is that the key thing for you, finding some sort of personal bond?

LD: It's not. It's not necessarily a personal bond, but it's something that speaks to you in a weird way. I don't necessarily need to have a close relationship with what's going on mentally in the character's head or be similar to that character, but it needs to say something. Much like you can read a book about something that's a complete departure from who you are, but still find something in there that you identify with or find intriguing.

MTV: And what you must have liked about this guy was, as you say, he wasn't hero or villain, but he lies a lot. There are a lot of things that people will not like about him in some respects.

LD: Yeah, he's a human being. [Laughs]

MTV: And that was the fun part, was sort of being able to play both sides against the middle a little bit.

LD: Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. I love the part where he sort of becomes obsessed with isolation and he's constantly looking for a more hardcore experience, and once he has everything, he dismisses all that and wants to plunge even deeper, and he becomes obsessed with isolation. And even the beach community, which is almost like the answer to everything you could dream, becomes too structured for him, and he wants to go off into another different distant place, but he's like a true adventurer. True traveler. He's not a tourist.

(Source : www.mtvasia.com)