The road to respect

By Craig McKee 00/02/19 Leonardo DiCaprio just one of a new generation of brilliant actors coping with stardom "Since Titanic, everything has been different for Leonardo DiCaprio. Since the billion-dollar smash hit, he has been transformed from a brillant young actor, not afraid to take risks with offbeat films and roles, to the biggest leading man on the planet. The question is, what affect will this have on this promising career. Let's hope it doesn't ruin it. DiCaprio's output since Titanic amounts to a cameo role in Woody Allen's Celebrity, and leads in The Man in the Iron Mask, and the new thriller, The Beach, which is getting mediocre reviews. His reputation is now more that of a superstar hearthrob than a serious actor. And that's a shame. We seem to find it difficult to let someone be both (unless you're Robert De Niro or Al Pacino, but neither of those is considered to be particularly good looking). Before he was a megastar (in other words, before Titanic), DiCaprio was one of the best young actors to come along in many years. Since then, his acting talent seems to be taken less seriously. Both his age and looks seem to be keeping him from getting the recognition he deserves. DiCaprio has already played more diverse roles than most veteran Hollywood leading men do in an entire career. He's one of several actors who have shown brilliance despite the media's and the fans' attempts to pigeon-hole them. Other examples include Brad Pitt, Johnny Depp, and most recently, Matt Damon. Pitt and Depp join DiCaprio in exhibiting an amazing range, and willingness to take on any character. Depp has perhaps received more respect that Pitt with roles that are completely different from one to the next. He's responsible for Edward Scissorhands, Don Juan DeMarco, and Ed Wood, three roles that could not be more diverse or more challenging. Others of note are What's Eating Gilbert Grape, and Benny and Joon. Pitt really seems to have gotten the short end of the stick in the respect department. He has turned in some wonderful perfomances. Among his best are Kalifornia, True Romance (a small part as a drugged out guy on a couch), Thelma and Louise, A River Runs Through It, The Twelfth Mondey and Seven. Why he doesn't get more respect as an actor is beyond me, but looks seem to be the only explanation. No one who has seen him play a serial killer in Kalifornia can doubt this guy's talent. Damon got a bread by being nominated for an Oscar in his first major role. But how his career rogresses from there depends on how carefully he chooses his roles from now on. While he was brilliant in Good Will Hunting, it remains to be seen how versatile he will prove to be. DiCaprio made a promising start in This Boy's Life opposite De Niro. This believable and sensitive performance by the teenager certainly did more than hint a the promise of what was to come. And we didn't have to wait long for that promise to be fulfilled. His role as a retarded boy in 1993's What's Eating Gilbert Grape brought him a well-deserved Oscar nomination, and further demonstrated DiCaprio's almost limitless range. He made the forgettable The Quick and The Dead the next year, but in 1995 came up with two very different, and incredible performances: The Basketbal Diaries and Total Eclipse. In the latter, he played poet Arthur Rimbaud, who has an affair with an older Paul Verlaine. This choice would seem to be as far from "safe" as it is possible to get for an actor. But he attacked it with the spirit of a real artists, bringing a maturity and danger to the role that an ordinary actor would have failed at. In The Basketball Diaries, he played poet and musician Jim Carroll as a teenager slipping into drug addiction and despair. He made the character as authentic as anyone could have. All the actors I've mentioned, but especially DiCaprio, have great careers ahead of them - if they stick to their creative guns and don't slip into the star system (Keanu Reeves?). If they succeed, we movie-goers will be the winners."