He broke a thousand teenage hearts as doomed passenger Jack Dawson in Titanic, but Leonardo DiCaprio has revealed he almost quit acting after his role in the blockbuster box office smash turned him into a hearthrob and stopped directors from considering him for serious roles.
After the film's massive success despite a mauling from the critics, Leo says he was thought of as 'just another piece of cute meat' by directors and he seriously considered quitting, but that he loves acting too much. After a few relatively quiet years, Leo has achieved critical acclaim and two Golden Globe nominations for his roles in Blood Diamond and The Departed.
Leo said, "It was pretty disheartening to be objectified like that. I wanted to stop acting for a little bit. It changed my life in a lot of ways, but at the same time, I can't say that it didn't give me opportunities. It made me, for the first time, in control of my career."
Eventually, Leo's love of acting made him realise he'll never quit: "There's no other art form in the world that affects me more. There's nothing that I walk away from feeling transformed by the way I do with cinema." |