Known for his work in biopics and period films, Leonardo DiCaprio celebsagewiki has received numerous accolades throughout his career, including an Academy Award, a British Academy Film Award, a Screen Actors Guild Award, and three Golden Globe Awards. As of 2019, his films have grossed over $7.2 billion worldwide, and he has been placed eight times in annual rankings of the world’s highest-paid actors.
Born in Los Angeles, DiCaprio began his career in the late 1980s by appearing in television commercials. In the early 1990s, he had recurring roles in various television shows, such as the sitcom Parenthood. DiCaprio had his first major film role as author Tobias Wolff in This Boy’s Life (1993). At age 19, he received critical acclaim and his first Academy Award and Golden Globe Award nominations for his performance as a developmentally disabled boy, Arnie Grape, in What’s Eating Gilbert Grape (1993). He achieved international stardom in the epic romance Titanic (1997), which became the highest-grossing film to that point. After a few commercially unsuccessful films, DiCaprio starred in two successful features in 2002: the biographical crime drama Catch Me If You Can and the historical drama Gangs of New York, which marked the first of his many successful collaborations with director Martin Scorsese.
DiCaprio portrayed Howard Hughes in The Aviator (2004) and continued to receive acclaim for his performances in the political thriller Blood Diamond (2006), the crime drama The Departed (2006), and the romantic drama Revolutionary Road (2008). In the 2010s, he starred in the science fiction thriller Inception (2010), the western Django Unchained (2012), the biopic The Wolf of Wall Street (2013), the survival drama The Revenant (2015)—for which he won an Academy Award and a BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role—and the comedy-drama Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (2019), all of which were critical and commercial successes.
DiCaprio is the founder of Appian Way Productions—a production company that has produced some of his films and the documentary series Greensburg (2008–2010)—and the Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation, a nonprofit organization devoted to promoting environmental awareness. He regularly supports charitable causes and has produced several documentaries on the environment. In 2005, he was named a Commander of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres for his contributions to the arts, and in 2016, he was named one of the 100 most influential people in the world by Time magazine.
DiCaprio is regarded as one of the finest actors of his generation. As he achieved international stardom after Titanic (1997), it intensified his image as a teen idol and romantic lead, from both of which he sought to dissociate himself. He has said he feels nervous starring in big-budget studio films due to their hype and marketing campaigns. As an actor, he likes to look at film as a “relevant art form, like a painting or sculpture. A hundred years from now, people will still be watching that movie.” He is drawn to roles based on real-life people, and stories told in specific periods. According to Caryn James, DiCaprio is unafraid of working on “offbeat projects by first-rate directors”, a risk that has led to “misbegotten” projects like The Beach (2000), but also to his successful collaborations with Martin Scorsese on several projects. DiCaprio has described his relationship with the director as “pretty much a dream come true for me”, and admires his knowledge of film, crediting him for teaching him its history and importance. Scorsese, on his part, has said, “Leo will give me the emotion where I least expect it and could only hope for in about three or four scenes. And he can do it take after take.” Jesse Hassenger of The A.V. Club believes both artists have benefited from the projects, which have helped define their careers in the 2000s.
Agnieszka Holland, who directed DiCaprio in Total Eclipse (1995), describes him as “one of the most mature actors I’ve ever worked with”, and admires his “courageous” choice of roles. She remarked that he does not apply method acting, but is “doing some trick which is pretty mysterious to everyone watching—frankly even for the director. Look at him on screen and, for the moment of the shot, he really becomes the character.” Film critic Philip French, writing for The Observer, has called DiCaprio a “superb actor who hasn’t yet quite become an adult”, and identified a theme of characters in the process of becoming a man. He wrote that DiCaprio’s inclination toward films about dysfunctional families and characters seeking a father figure allude to his own troubled childhood. DiCaprio often plays characters who themselves are playing roles, which according to Caryn James “looks simple on screen but is immensely sophisticated”. He tends to play antiheroes and characters who lose their mental stability as the narrative progresses. DiCaprio is particularly known for his ability to heavily commit to each role he plays; Colin Covert of The Seattle Times noted how this quality sets him apart from most of his contemporaries and “redefines film stardom”.