Leonardo DiCaprio Quotes

Sam [Mendes] said he took advantage of the fact that Kate and I were so close for many years. He knew it was something he could harness in our performances, and we knew that too.

I spent a long time in art school so I can really draw. I'll doodle and suddenly I'll find the beginning of the movie in one picture. Usually, I start my stuff on the telephone. Right by the telephone I've got a book of doodles. When I'm on the phone, I'll be doing a drawing eventually.

Some people don't get it when I'm being sarcastic.

It's a hard concept for me to wrap my head around to completely sacrifice any sort of love in your life, to never experience that on a personal level.

You can either be a vain movie star, or you can try to shed some light on different aspects of the human condition.

We must all move shoulder to shoulder in a unified front to show this administration that the true majority of people are willing to vote for a cleaner environment and won't back down.

When I grew up, I lived in the ghettos of Hollywood; it was the most disgusting place to be. I was known as the crazy little kid. I did impressions. Then I realized that's not what I want to do. I don't want to be a comedian to please other people.

At some point in your career, someone is going to tell you, "This stove is hot. Do not touch this stove." And the weird thing is, you'll want to touch it. But resist that urge, man.

This created world really helped me as an actor. It heightened everything, which made it more dangerous, more interesting and more liberating.

Marty [Scorsese] knows that when an improvised moment comes out of a real situation, it's gonna have more life and more going on than anything you can imagine and that's how the character can become the story

The Gatsby that I remember reading when I was 15 years old in junior high school was far different from the Gatsby I read as an adult.

I've always kind of made sure to maintain the sense of who I am and never be mean or cruel or snotty to anyone. Because, at the end of the day, it's not going to help you last in the business, and who wants to be around someone like that? I don't want to turn into 'that guy.' That guy!

We've been given this gift, our planet, and we've found no other place in the universe that we can inhabit. I want to do something to create radical change to help save it. It's our responsibility.

[Success] always starts with the material; it always starts with the truth and honesty of the characters that you read in the screenplay and that's rarely something that can be remedied if it's simply not there by the time you shoot the film. Thank God we had that.

It gets to the point where you're hot, you're hot, and when you're not, you're not. It's so true. I have to slow down soon.

I created my foundation as a result of that and my website, and I try to shed some light on some very topical issues right now. The idea is to try to get people to become obviously more knowledgeable about the issue and try to get corporations and individuals to contribute to these nonprofit organizations.

I am not a scientist, but I don't need to be.

I didn't even know what I did in 'What's Eating Gilbert Grape'. I just went off with whatever I felt instinctually without a second thought.

Since I was very young I've been fascinated with nature and I actually wanted to be a marine biologist when I was very young. That was a great passion of mine. So I suppose in the off season when I'm not making movies, I became more and more active as an environmentalist trying to be more vocal about issues that I felt were important.

I don't think my parents would be shocked about anything I did, because they're so laid-back.

Right now, our mother -- our mother -- all of our mothers, Mother Earth is hurting. And she needs a generation of thoughtful, caring and active kids like all of you to protect her for the future. You can help us win the battle to clean up our air, our water, our land, to protect our forests, our oceans and our wildlife.

I think the environmental movement is the biggest people's movement in the world. Unfortunately, our governments and corporations haven't responded accordingly to protect our planet's natural resources.

I became an actor at a very young age, but I also had a deep respect for nature and I think I was sort of a little biologist when I was younger. I watched documentaries on rainforest pollution and the loss of species and habitats for animals around the world. It affected me in a very hardcore, emotional way when I was younger. So, later in life I wanted to continue that path more and investigate and learn more about ecological issues.

The truth of the matter is this - I never look for films specifically, because ultimately if the fundamentals of the character and the script and the director aren't there, it makes it a moot point.

It's amazing to completely focus on something for four, five or six months, have it completely consume your life and be constantly thinking about somebody else's set of circumstances and how they would react to something. I find it fascinating. It's rewarding and on a professional and personal level.

I watch a lot of Turner Classic movies. But I don't do private screenings. I don't have the old school, reel to reel projectors. I do have a big screen TV, though.

The things that you did with parents, whether it was spending every Sunday morning with your dad and eating French toast and watching Popeye, or decorating the Christmas tree with our mother - these are memories that help you be happy.

I've changed. You can't help it. Your mind starts working in a different way. You feel really scrutinised by people.

I will fly around the world doing good for the environment.

Like everything, personal relationships and all that stuff is sort of put on ice while you go off to your location for five or six months. So, do I feel more settled in my life and in my work? Absolutely, yeah.

I've really only had one (dream) since I got into this business at 13 years old, which was to be in this business forever. Once I did my first television commercial, I caught that itch and that bug. I want to be a part of pieces of art - as far as cinema is concerned - that people will want to see for generations to come. That's my dream.

I think actors make the mistake of finding their little niche in the business and once they try to do something a little darker, boom, they get slapped across the face for it, so they go back to what they did before.

I suppose playing an older man is a way of preparing myself for getting older.

There's a difference in our ages [with Leonardo DiCaprio], but we were both in the same sort of position [on The Quick and the Death movie].Everyone below us in a casting position were all these really famous character actors like Keith David. And they were looking at the two of us going, 'Who are these guys?' So that naturally kind of put us together in a way where we'd just hang out together because we didn't care about status. We just wanted to enjoy the experience. The two things that have changed about Leo [ DiCaprio] since that time: he can drink legally and he's no longer a virgin.

I like to prepare as much as possible beforehand, but there's definitely that element of fear when you're on set, and you have to be conscious of it and use that fear to drive you to work harder.

I've never known a situation in my career where a terrible script turned into a movie that was out of this world or was a success.

I have no problem playing anyone who has different politics than me. In fact, I don't take that into consideration at all. You have to find something sympathetic in a man. It's that common ground you need to connect with someone.

What I would do in order to be popular was, I'd put myself on line and joke around and be funny, and I was always known as the crazy kid.

I'm probably not going to get married unless I live with somebody for 10 or 20 years. But these people, Romeo and Juliet, took a chance and they did it. We don't have the balls that Romeo did.

Fame is not the worst thing. I went to dinner the other night, and the girls in the restaurant ignored me. It was so annoying.

The challenge for me was not just the prosthetic work and how to move like an older man would move, but more so how to have 50 years of experience in the workplace and talk to a young Robert F. Kennedy as if he was some political upstart that didn't know what the hell he was talking about. That was the big challenge [in the J. Edgar Hoover mоvie].

If you can unify the public mind saving an iconic species like the tiger, like they did with the panda, that means you have to protect their habitat and everything that they hunt. And that means saving massive, thousands of acres for them to be able to roam and breed. So it's more of a land effort.

I've got this reputation for shooting one take which is a wonderful reputation to have but it's hard to live up to.

As a little kid growing up in Hollywood, I was called 'a little crazy'. And now I guess I'm still that way.

I have never been a fashionista or someone who puts a lot of thought into what I wear, and I dress to be as comfortable as I possibly can.

Portraying emotionally ill characters gives me the chance to really act.

From an outsider's perspective, it's amazing what [Clint Eastwood] does. If he's not directing a film, he's acting in it, or rather he's composing the music for that film. His commitment to what he does is astounding for all of us to witness. It's inspiring, actually.

School, I never truly got the knack of. I could never focus on things I didn't want to learn.