Not each actor can afford to be choosy concerning the roles they find yourself taking. It is a brutal trade to be selective in. However in case you see an upcoming movie that stars an actor like Leonardo DiCaprio, which means he really believes within the mission. The teenager heartthrob turned Academy Award-winning actor boasts fairly the filmography having labored with such celebrated filmmakers as James Cameron (“Titanic”), Christopher Nolan (“Inception”), Steven Spielberg (“Catch Me If You Can”), and Sam Raimi (“The Fast and the Useless”). Working with any a type of names would offer you some enhance of credibility, however the truth that he is additionally fostered a working relationship with the legendary Martin Scorsese throughout six (quickly to be seven with “Satan within the White Metropolis”) movies in 20 years is an actual feather in his cap. And now DiCaprio’s subsequent huge position involves us courtesy of certainly one of our best working filmmakers in Paul Thomas Anderson.
Anderson’s filmography is only one heavy hitter masterpiece after the opposite, together with “Magnolia,” “Punch-Drunk Love,” and “The Grasp.” He is a generational expertise whose work demonstrates his close to flawless capacity to safe a number of the greatest actors within the recreation and seize them to perfection, à la Daniel Day-Lewis in “There Will Be Blood” and “Phantom Thread.” It appears fairly unusual that Anderson hadn’t already labored with DiCaprio earlier than, provided that they appear like a pure match. However, it is fairly thrilling that these two artists are lastly collaborating with “One Battle After One other.”
Within the anticipated motion crime thriller, DiCaprio performs Bob Ferguson, a burned out revolutionary determine who finally ends up falling again into his previous habits when his teenage daughter Willa (Chase Infiniti) finds herself wrapped up in a horrible predicament. Warner Bros. could not appear to have any concept of methods to market this film to informal moviegoing audiences, however for my cash, DiCaprio working alongside the likes of Regina Corridor and Benicio del Toro in a PTA image says every thing I have to find out about being there opening night time. Whereas it definitely seems like a present for Anderson and DiCaprio working collectively at this cut-off date, their abilities may have collided rather a lot sooner.
Leonardo DiCaprio needs he had been in Paul Thomas Anderson’s Boogie Nights
In a 2025 Esquire interview, Anderson requested DiCaprio if he had any lingering regrets, to which the “As soon as Upon a Time In Hollywood” actor had just one — not saying sure to the lead position in “Boogie Nights:”
“I will say it though you are right here: My largest remorse isn’t doing ‘Boogie Nights.’ It was a profound film of my technology. I am unable to think about anybody however Mark [Wahlberg] in it. Once I lastly received to see that film, I simply thought it was a masterpiece. It is ironic that you are the particular person asking that query, but it surely’s true.”
On the DVD commentary for “Boogie Nights,” Anderson talks about how the choice to solid the highschool dropout turned heavily-endowed porn star Dirk Diggler got here all the way down to a choice between DiCaprio and Mark Wahlberg after having been impressed by their work in 1995’s “The Basketball Diaries” (by way of Movie Faculty Rejects). DiCaprio is such a dedicated actor that he in all probability would have given an important efficiency alongside the likes of Philip Seymour Hoffman, Julianne Moore, and a scene-stealing Alfred Molina, however Wahlberg suits Diggler like a glove, with the position enjoying to his strengths as an actor. He effortlessly transforms from a youthful optimist allured by the prosperity of fame to an trade veteran trapped in a sleazy cycle that chews him up, spits him out, and welcomes him again as a modified particular person.
Within the late ’90s, Anderson and DiCaprio have been each notable 20-somethings taking huge swings that in the end despatched them on the trajectory of the profession paths they’ve now, albeit in numerous roles throughout the movie trade. There’s an irony to Anderson believing that DiCaprio did not have any regrets over deciding to work with Cameron as an alternative, just for him to disclose the other proper on the prime of their interview. I supposed it is higher late than by no means to appropriate a pairing almost three a long time within the making.
“Boogie Nights” is presently streaming on Paramount+.
