The Interviews Connection





To Leonardo...from your fans!

Make it count each waking day,
Let the world think about you what they may,
Don't ever be afraid
To live your life as you see fit.
And we all beg you, Leonardo
Please don't ever quit.

Bringing us the characters we love so dear,
Because lately we can't help but fear,
That with all this media pressure
You may forget what we hold most dear.

Your light has brought us warmth,
In so many different ways,
You have borne your soul to us
Through the characters that you play.

We're not asking more from you
Than this gift you choose to share
For it's that gift that brings us joy,
Makes our hearts just melt inside
With passion, warmth and emotion,
As your fans, we are bursting with pride..

So remember that we care
About the man you truly are
We will always be proud of you
For remaining who you are.

Just keep on being 'Leonardo',
Sensitive, loyal, sweet, and true,
Someone that we've come to love
Just because you're you...









Navel gazers abroad
Sunday, March 12, 2000

Back before he became famous in William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet and then megafamous in Titanic, he was nominated for an Oscar in What's Eating Gilbert Grape. So when all the dust settles from the hoopla and backlash over Titanic, Leonardo will still be the actor who was so precociously authentic and intense he inadvertently stole scenes from Hollywood greats like Robert DeNiro (in This Boy's Life) and Johnny Depp (in Gilbert Grape) and stole the entire movie (Celebrity). With The Beach, he's put some distance between himself and Titanic. Working with Martin Scorsese on Gangs of New York may well give him the opportunity for his first great adult performance. If he hooks up as he is rumored he might, with The Insider director Michael Mann for a film about the early life of billionaire Howard Hughes, he'll be set up for another great one. He's an actor who's always been able to act things he doesn't yet know in real life; now, the older he gets, the more real life experience he'll put into his performances and the deeper they'll get.

Thanks to Karen....here's the Rolling Stone Yearbook '98 quote about Leonardo....

ROLLING STONE YEARBOOK Dec., 1998

"...it was Leo, sweet Leo, cruel Leo, who brought the nation to it's knees, batting his infinitely DiCapriescent eyelashes to the rhythm of love. Teen girls scrawled "A.L.L." (Another Leo Lover) in their notebooks, while their moms randomly drove their cars up onto the sidewalk thinking about his stockings in THE MAN IN THE IRON MASK. At last, here was a real movie star. Leo didn't want to write novels or express interesting opinions or play bass in an indie band; he just wanted to take his entourage to clubs and meet models. No doubt it'll end in tears when he decides he needs to be taken seriously, but for now the winsome Scorpio works the role of National Vixen like no male actor before him, and here's hoping that his reign, like our hearts, will go on and on and on."


These words were taken from an interview with Leonardo's good friend Toby McGuire, describing one of the reasons DiCaprio and McGuire are so special...

From(Interview) Oct 98.....thanks Aimee

Even though there's lot about him that would qualify Maguire as your typical 23 year old guy, there's a palpable fragility about him that one does not expect in such a young actor who is described by insiders as white-hot and is being cast in many of the most coveted roles today. Funnily enough, I experienced a similar fragility in Maguire's good friend Leonardo DiCaprio when we profiled him for our June 1994 cover story which was also photographed by Bruce Weber.

The fragility I noticed in both actors has to do with the youth that Maguire is talking about and their feelings around it. Whether we're old or young, we all hate being underestimated because of our age, as we should. But as so often happens, age comes into play with these two in other ways as well. By the time they were both in their early teens they had already put in time on the acting beat - looking for parts, hoping for work, dreaming of the day when they would be big stars, not kids who felt like they were unheard, unseen and underestimated. When you're a kid, going out and getting work in the entertainment business ages you, though. Any semblance of innocence should be nailed down so that it can be held onto. This is a world where one learns pretty fast that the more often the person others want you to be, the more often you get the part- great for a career but the worst possible thing for securing a strong sense of oneself. It takes most of a lifetime to understand who we are, so we can imagine how hard it is for child actors not to get lost in the persona-switching that goes on. The fragility I sensed with DiCaprio and then again with Maguire has to do with fighting not to get lost. And even though acting is a field which can be both about rootlessness and erasing a sense of who a person is, for Maguire it became the way he found his home, as it were (as a child, he lived in so many different places, moved a lot, uprooted - he also came from a broken home, like Leo)



Note! Extensive articles/reviews/interviews are located on The Movies in Words and Pictures, including all recent articles/interviews for The Beach and Gangs of New York.




Please see my Credit List Page for an extensive list of fellow Leonardo supporters who helped with information and pictures, as well as graphics and HTML lessons that made it possible for The Dream Page to become a reality!


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