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Often romantically linked to women much younger than himself, Leonardo DiCaprio may have hinted at why the age gap is of no significance to him as he reflects on turning 50.
The Hollywood star of films including Titanic and The Wolf of Wall Street claims he feels as if he is only in his early 30s.
He was asked by the US film-maker Paul Thomas Anderson: “You’re going to answer as quickly as you can. If you didn’t know how old you are, how old are you right now?” DiCaprio responded: “Thirty-two.”
Anderson, the director of DiCaprio’s latest action thriller, One Battle After Another, which is released in the UK next month, asked him to reflect on his milestone birthday, which he celebrated in November.
The actor said: “Well, it creates a feeling like you have a desire to just be more honest and not waste your time. I can only imagine how the next few decades are going to progress. I look at my mother, for example, and she just says exactly what she thinks and wastes no time. She spends no time trying to fake it.”
He added: “Being more upfront and risking having things fall apart or risk the disagreements or risk going your separate ways from any type of relationship in life – the personal, professional – it’s that you just don’t want to waste your time any more.
“You have to just be much more upfront. It’s almost a responsibility because much more of your life is behind you than it is ahead of you.”
In the interview, for Esquire magazine, DiCaprio explained how he avoided getting the blues after filming. “I think I’m good at it because I take a lot of time off between films,” he said. “I do things more sparingly, which means you’re anxious to get back to your real life once you’ve finished filming. Life goes on hold when you’re filming. Everything stops and gets put on the back burner in your real life.
“I might be more concerned if I worked too much. To go from film to film, I would be scared about: what do I have to come back to? I’m very fortunate for that.”
DiCaprio made his film debut in 1991 and has received numerous awards including a best actor Oscar and a Bafta for his role in 2015’s The Revenant. He said his biggest regret was not doing Boogie Nights, another of Anderson’s films.
Of his old films, DiCaprio said: “I rarely watch any of my films, but if I’m being honest there is one that I’ve watched more than others. It’s The Aviator. That’s simply because it was such a special moment to me.
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“I had worked with Marty [Martin Scorsese] on Gangs of New York and I’d been toting around a book on Howard Hughes for 10 years. I almost did it with Michael Mann but there was a conflict and I ended up bringing it to Marty. I was 30. It was the first time as an actor I got to feel implicitly part of the production, rather than just an actor hired to play a role.
“I felt responsible in a whole new way. I’ve always felt proud and connected to that film as such a key part of my growing up in this industry and taking on a role of a real collaborator for the first time.”
The full interview is in Esquire UK’s autumn issue, out on 14 August.
