Leonardo DiCaprio, known to be one of the most elite actors in Hollywood, collaborated with director Edward Zwick (Jack Reacher: Never Go Back) for a film that showcased Sierra Leone’s (country in West Africa) pain during the civil war along with gripping performances from Djimon Hounsou (Shazam!) and Jennifer Connelly (Top Gun: Maverick).
The film – Blood Diamond, released in 2006, got DiCaprio an Oscar nod for his performance as Danny Archer, a mercenary who looked to benefit from the rare gem that Hounsou’s Solomon Vandy discovered being a slave laborer to the regional warlords.
DiCaprio, 48, had to develop an African accent for his role, but it invited some criticism. Media personality, Trevor Noah, in January 2019, remarked on the actor’s divisive accent in the $171 million film while commenting about one of America’s most expensive Jewelry brands – Tiffany & Co.
Trevor Noah Hated Leonardo DiCaprio’s Blood Diamond Accent
According to Trevor Noah’s The Daily Show’s Twitter handle, a spokesperson for Tiffany & Co. explained that their diamonds would be conflict-free going forward, to which he said that his ad campaign was, “shop here, we didn’t kill any Africans.”
He later said that diamonds got the attention as Leonardo DiCaprio made a film on conflict-stricken diamonds. But, the actor’s accent got a lot more flak.
Mimicking DiCaprio’s accent, Noah said –
“Maybe you guys won’t remember that, but we Africans will never forget. He was like, ‘We gotta go back to those bloody get the diamonds. Get the bloody diamonds.’ What are you a drunk Australian?”
Not just DiCaprio, he dragged Forrest Whitaker’s Black Panther character Zuri into the mix by saying that they both should make a film and do “bad accents together.”
Leonardo DiCaprio’s Take On His African Accent
DiCaprio put in a lot of work to develop an accent that could match the native one, according to Time Magazine’s Q&A in 2006. He noted that he tortured the dialect coach who helped him through the film to accommodate the language and tone in the region.
“I’m pretty good at imitating people. I interviewed a number of different people in South Africa and honed in on the one guy I wanted to sound like. Then it was a process where [dialect coach] Tim Monich and I recorded him and tortured him (laughs) by making him say sentences in varying ways and different energies and different tempos. Those recordings became a kind of mantra I’d listen to over and over again.”
DiCaprio’s Blood Diamond became a much-decorated addition to his portfolio as the storyline touched on the horrors of Sierra Leone’s Civil War that went on from 1991 to 2002.
Reuniting with his long-time collaborator, Martin Scorsese, DiCaprio will land with his next – Killers of the Flower Moon on October 20. It will premiere on Apple TV+ in November.
Source: The Daily Show
