The friendship between DiCaprio and Toby Maguire may be the longest in all of Hollywood. When they were both very young up-and-coming actors searching for their big break, the two met. DiCaprio was profoundly affected by Maguire, and the two became friends as a result.
DiCaprio once recalled in an interview with The Associated Press about a time when he interrupted Maguire to ask for his number while he was shooting for Hot Rod Brown Class Clown with Whoopi Goldberg. Since then, Tobey Maguire, the hero of Spider-Man, and Leonardo DiCaprio have been the closest pals. However, Despite their mutual support, Maguire believed DiCaprio did not take his first real film opportunity with Robert De Niro seriously enough.
Read more : Spider-Man 3: Tobey Maguire & Andrew Garfield Signed On (EXCLUSIVE)
Tobey Maguire didn’t think Leonardo DiCaprio would end up starring in This Boy’s Life
One of Leonardo DiCaprio’s early major film roles was in This Boy’s Life. The 1993 motion picture was based on Tobias Wolff’s autobiography. It was a major accomplishment for DiCaprio at the time because he had to compete against hundreds of other young performers for the role. Tobey Maguire himself was one of those actors. However, at first, Maguire didn’t think DiCaprio would get the part. Talking with Vanity Fair, Maguire explained,
“He was doing karate kicks in the hallway. He wasn’t serious at all,Leo says, ‘De Niro . . . wasn’t he in Cape Fear? I said, ‘Are you f***ing kidding me, dude?’”
To this DiCaprio replied,
“My ignorance, as Tobey says, was a kind of advantage, Anyway, I stood up in front of De Niro really forcefully and I pointed at his face and screamed one of the lines. Then I sat there and waited for some kind of reaction. I remember De Niro had this smirk on his face, like, obviously [he knew] this kid wanted to come in here and show him that he had guts. Everyone started laughing and I said, ‘What? What is it?’ And, well, the cool thing is that I obviously showed him something.”
Well, one cannot disagree with the fact that knowing more about the legendary Robert De Niro before performing in front of him can only make one tremble with fear.
Leonardo DiCaprio earlier thought he crashed his audition after improvising
DiCaprio’s stunt could have been a smart move in retrospect. But after deviating from the screenplay, the Oscar winner had second thoughts right away. He wasn’t expecting the kind of immediate reaction his improvisation brought about. DiCaprio said in an interview with SAG,
“I remember there was a mustard jar scene, and he had to jam a mustard jar in my eye repeatedly, it was an abuse scene,“And the script sort of didn’t call for it, but I got up and he said, ‘Is it empty? Is it empty?’ And I got up and I screamed, ‘No!’ … I screamed in his face, and I sat there with my head looking like a red tomato and everyone started laughing at me. … And I sat there frozen, just thinking, ‘Oh my god, I just screwed this entire opportunity up.’”
But De Niro reassured DiCaprio that his act might have worked since he ended up playing the main role in the movie.
This Boy’s Life is a 1993 American biographical drama film based on the novel of the same name by author Tobias Wolff. The movie sees DiCaprio play the role of Tobey, the rebellious teenager who navigates his relationship with his abusive stepfather, a role played by Robert De Niro. Directed by Michael Caton-Jones, the film was the first collaborative work of DiCaprio and D Niro who later on worked together on films such as The Audition and Marvin’s Room. The duo will be seen on screen again in their upcoming film Killers of the Flower Moon.
Killers of the Flower Moon is set to release on October 6, 2023.
Source : Showbiz Cheatsheet
