Leonardo DiCaprio

Leonardo Wilhelm DiCaprio (/diˈkæprioʊ, dɪ-/ ; Italian: [diˈkaːprjo]; born November 11, 1974) is an American actor and film producer. Known for his work in biographical and period films, he is the recipient of numerous accolades, including an Academy Award, a British Academy Film 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. He had a recurring role in the sitcom Parenthood (1990–1991), and had his first major film part as author Tobias Wolff in This Boy's Life (1993). He received critical acclaim and his first Academy Award nomination for playing a developmentally disabled boy in What's Eating Gilbert Grape (1993). DiCaprio achieved international stardom with the star-crossed romances Romeo + Juliet (1996) and Titanic (1997). After the latter became the highest-grossing film in the world at the time, he reduced his workload for a few years. In an attempt to shed his image of a romantic hero, DiCaprio sought roles in other genres, including the 2002 crime dramas Catch Me If You Can and Gangs of New York; the latter marked the first of his many successful collaborations with director Martin Scorsese.

DiCaprio continued to gain acclaim for his performances in the biopic The Aviator (2004), the political thriller Blood Diamond (2006), the crime drama The Departed (2006) and the romantic drama Revolutionary Road (2008). He later made environmental documentaries and starred in several high-profile directors' successful projects, including the action 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 the Academy Award for Best Actor—the comedy-dramas Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (2019) and Don't Look Up (2021), and the crime drama Killers of the Flower Moon (2023).

DiCaprio is the founder of Appian Way Productions—a production company that has made some of his films and the documentary series Greensburg (2008–2010)—and Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation, a nonprofit organization devoted to promoting environmental awareness. A United Nations Messenger of Peace, he regularly supports charitable causes. In 2005, he was named a Commander of the Order of Arts and Letters for his contributions to the arts, and in 2016, he appeared in Time magazine's 100 most influential people in the world. DiCaprio was voted one of the 50 greatest actors of all time in a 2022 readers' poll by Empire.

DiCaprio was born on November 11, 1974, in Los Angeles, California. He is the only child of Irmelin Indenbirken, a legal secretary, and George DiCaprio, an underground comix artist and distributor. They met while attending college and moved to Los Angeles after graduating. Irmelin is German, and George is of Italian and German descent. Irmelin's father, Wilhelm Indenbirken, was German, and her mother, Helene Indenbirken, was a Russian immigrant living in Germany. Sources have falsely claimed that DiCaprio's maternal grandmother was born in Odesa, Ukraine; there is no evidence that he has any relatives of Ukrainian birth or heritage.

DiCaprio's parents named him Leonardo because his pregnant mother first felt him kick while she was looking at a Leonardo da Vinci painting in the Uffizi museum in Florence, Italy. When he was one year old, DiCaprio's parents divorced after George fell in love with another woman and moved out. To raise him together, DiCaprio's parents moved into twin cottages with a shared garden in Echo Park, Los Angeles. George lived with his girlfriend and her son, Adam Farrar, with whom DiCaprio developed a close bond. DiCaprio and his mother later moved to other neighborhoods, such as Los Feliz. He has described his parents as "bohemian in every sense of the word" and as "the people I trust the most in the world". DiCaprio has mentioned growing up poor in a neighborhood plagued with prostitution, crime and violence. He was raised Catholic.

Attending the Los Angeles Center for Enriched Studies for four years and later the Seeds Elementary School, he later enrolled at the John Marshall High School. DiCaprio disliked public school and wanted to audition for acting jobs instead. He dropped out of high school later, eventually earning a general equivalency diploma.

As a child, DiCaprio wanted to become either a marine biologist or an actor. He eventually favored the latter; he liked impersonating characters and imitating people, and enjoyed seeing their reactions to his acting. According to DiCaprio, his interest in performing began at the age of two when he went onto the stage at a performance festival and danced spontaneously to a positive response from the crowd. He was also motivated to learn acting when Farrar's appearance in a television commercial earned him $50,000. DiCaprio has said in interviews that his first television appearance was in the children's series Romper Room, and that he was dismissed from the show for being disruptive. The show's host has denied that any children were removed from the show in this way. When he was 11, he almost quit acting in order to pursue breakdancing, having gotten second place in a competition in his mother's native Germany. At 14, he began appearing in several commercials for Matchbox cars, which he calls his first role. DiCaprio later appeared in commercials for Kraft Singles, Bubble Yum and Apple Jacks. In 1989, he played the role of Glen in two episodes of the television show The New Lassie.

At the beginning of his career, DiCaprio had difficulty finding an agent. When he found one, the agent suggested DiCaprio change his name to Lenny Williams to appeal to American audiences, which he declined to do. DiCaprio remained jobless for a year and a half, although he had 100 auditions. Following this lack of success, DiCaprio was going to give up acting but his father persuaded him to persevere. Motivated by his father and by the prospect of financial security, he continued to audition. After a talent agent, who knew his mother's friend, recommended him to casting directors, DiCaprio secured roles in about 20 commercials.

By the early 1990s, DiCaprio began acting regularly on television, starting with a role in the pilot of The Outsiders (1990) and one episode of the soap opera Santa Barbara (1990), in which he played a teenage alcoholic. DiCaprio's career prospects improved when he was cast in Parenthood, a series based on the 1989 comedy film of the same name. To prepare for the role of Garry Buckman, a troubled teenager, he analyzed Joaquin Phoenix's performance in the original film. His work that year earned him two nominations at the 12th Youth in Film Awards—Best Young Actor in a Daytime Series for Santa Barbara and Best Young Actor Starring in a New Television Series for Parenthood. Around this time, he was a contestant on the children's game show Fun House, on which he performed several stunts, including catching the fish inside a small pool using only his teeth.

DiCaprio made his film debut in 1991 as the stepson of an unscrupulous landlord in the low-budget horror sequel Critters 3—a part he later described as "your average, no-depth, standard kid with blond hair". DiCaprio has stated that he prefers not to remember Critters 3, viewing it as "possibly one of the worst films of all time" and the kind of role he wanted to avoid in the future. Later in 1991, he became a recurring cast member on the sitcom Growing Pains, playing Luke Brower, a homeless boy who is taken in by the show's central family. Co-star Joanna Kerns recalls DiCaprio being "especially intelligent and disarming for his age" but she noted that he was also mischievous and jocular on set, and often made fun of his co-stars. DiCaprio was cast by the producers to appeal to young female audience, but his arrival did not improve the show's ratings and he left before the end of its run. He was nominated for a Young Artist Award for Best Young Actor Co-starring in a Television Series. DiCaprio also had an uncredited role in 1991 in one episode of Roseanne.

In 1992, DiCaprio had a brief role in the first installment of the Poison Ivy film series, and was handpicked by Robert De Niro from a shortlist of 400 young actors to co-star with him in This Boy's Life. Adapted from the memoir by Tobias Wolff, the film focuses on the relationship between a rebellious teenager, Toby (DiCaprio), and his mother (Ellen Barkin) and abusive stepfather (De Niro). Director Michael Caton-Jones said that DiCaprio did not know how to behave on set; accordingly, Caton-Jones used a strict mentoring style, after which DiCaprio's behavior began to improve. Bilge Ebiri of Rolling Stone found that the powerful bond between Barkin and DiCaprio elevated the film, praising DiCaprio's portrayal of his character's complex growth from a rebellious teen to an independent young man. This Boy's Life was the first film that gained him recognition.

DiCaprio played the developmentally disabled brother of Johnny Depp's character in What's Eating Gilbert Grape (1993), a comedy-drama about a dysfunctional Iowa family. Caton-Jones recommended DiCaprio to director Lasse Hallström who was initially skeptical, as he considered DiCaprio too good-looking for the part. Hallström cast DiCaprio after he emerged as "the most observant" auditionee. To ensure authenticity in his portrayal, DiCaprio studied similarly impaired children and their mannerisms, and Hallström allowed him to create the character using his own researched attributes. The film became a critical success. At 19, DiCaprio earned a National Board of Review Award, as well as nominations for a Golden Globe Award and an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, making him the seventh-youngest Oscar nominee in the category. "The film's real show-stopping turn comes from Mr. DiCaprio," wrote New York Times critic Janet Maslin, "who makes Arnie's many tics so startling and vivid that at first he is difficult to watch. The performance has a sharp, desperate intensity from beginning to end." Caryn James, also writing for The New York Times, said of his performances in This Boy's Life and What's Eating Gilbert Grape: "He made the raw, emotional neediness of those boys completely natural and powerful."