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 when you see an upcoming movie that stars an actor like Leonardo DiCaprio, meaning he actually believes within the challenge. 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 Lifeless”). Working with any a type of names would offer you some increase 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 massive function involves us courtesy of one in every 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 potential to safe among the finest 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DiCaprio performs Bob Ferguson, a burned out revolutionary determine who finally ends up falling again into his outdated habits when his teenage daughter Willa (Chase Infiniti) finds herself wrapped up in a horrible predicament. Warner Bros. might not appear to have any concept of the right way 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 part I must learn 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 skills might have collided lots 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 function in “Boogie Nights:”
“I will say it although you are right here: My largest remorse is just not 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 most likely would have given an excellent 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 function taking part in 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 massive swings that in the end despatched them on the trajectory of the profession paths they’ve now, albeit in several roles inside the movie trade. There’s an irony to Anderson believing that DiCaprio did not have any regrets over deciding to work with Cameron as a substitute, 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 many years within the making.
“Boogie Nights” is at present streaming on Paramount+.
