Leonardo DiCaprio facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Leonardo DiCaprio
DiCaprio in 2019
Born	Leonardo Wilhelm DiCaprio (1974-11-11) November 11, 1974 (age 50) Los Angeles, California, U.S.
Occupation	Actor film producer
Years active	1989–present
Organization	Appian Way Productions Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation
Works	Full list
Title	United Nations Messenger of Peace (designated 2014)
Parent(s)	George DiCaprio (father)
Awards	Full list
Signature

Leonardo Wilhelm DiCaprio (/diˈkæprioʊ, dɪ-/; Italian: [diˈkaːprjo]; born November 11, 1974) is an American actor and film producer. Known for his work in biographical and period films, he is the recipient of numerous accolades, including an Academy Award, a British Academy Film Award, and three Golden Globe Awards. As of 2019^[update] his films have grossed over .2 billion worldwide, and he has been placed eight times in annual rankings of the world's highest-paid actors.

Born in Los Angeles, DiCaprio began his career in the late 1980s by appearing in television commercials. In the early 1990s, he had recurring roles in various television shows, such as the sitcom Parenthood, and had his first major film part as author Tobias Wolff in This Boy's Life (1993). He received critical acclaim and his first Academy Award and Golden Globe Award nominations for his performance as a developmentally disabled boy in What's Eating Gilbert Grape (1993). DiCaprio achieved international stardom with the star-crossed romances Romeo + Juliet (1996) and Titanic (1997). After the latter became the highest-grossing film in the world at the time, he reduced his workload for a few years. In an attempt to shed his image of a romantic hero, DiCaprio sought roles in other genres, including the 2002 crime dramas Catch Me If You Can and Gangs of New York; the latter marked the first of his many successful collaborations with director Martin Scorsese.

DiCaprio continued to gain acclaim for his performances in the biopic The Aviator (2004), the political thriller Blood Diamond (2006), the crime drama The Departed (2006) and the romantic drama Revolutionary Road (2008). He later made environmental documentaries and starred in several high-profile directors' successful projects, including the action thriller Inception (2010), the western Django Unchained (2012), the biopic The Wolf of Wall Street (2013), the survival drama The Revenant (2015)—for which he won the Academy Award for Best Actor— the comedy-dramas Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (2019) and Don't Look Up (2021), and the crime drama Killers of the Flower Moon (2023).

DiCaprio is the founder of Appian Way Productions—a production company that has made some of his films and the documentary series Greensburg (2008–2010)—and the Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation, a nonprofit organization devoted to promoting environmental awareness. A United Nations Messenger of Peace, he regularly supports charitable causes. In 2005, he was named a Commander of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres for his contributions to the arts, and in 2016, he appeared in Time magazine's 100 most influential people in the world. DiCaprio was voted one of the 50 greatest actors of all time in a 2022 readers' poll by Empire.

Early life and acting background

Leonardo Wilhelm DiCaprio was born on November 11, 1974, in Los Angeles, California. He is the only child of Irmelin (née Indenbirken), a legal secretary, and George DiCaprio, an underground comix writer, publisher, and distributor of comic books. His father is of Italian and German descent. His maternal grandfather, Wilhelm Indenbirken, was German, and his maternal grandmother, Helene Indenbirken, was a Russian immigrant living in Germany. DiCaprio was raised as a Catholic.

DiCaprio's parents named him Leonardo because his pregnant mother first felt him kick while she was looking at a Leonardo da Vinci painting in the Uffizi museum in Florence, Italy. When DiCaprio was one year old, his father moved out of their house after he fell in love with another woman. Because his parents wanted to raise him together, they moved into twin cottages with a shared garden in Echo Park, a neighborhood in Los Angeles. DiCaprio's father lived with his girlfriend and her son, Adam Farrar. Leonardo and Adam developed a close relationship as they grew up. Leonardo attended several schools before dropping out of high school in his third year and eventually earning a general equivalency diploma (GED).

As a child, DiCaprio liked impersonating characters and imitating people to see people's reactions to his acting. He decided that acting would be a good way for him to make money to help his mother. He said that his first television appearance was in the children's series Romper Room. He appeared in several commercials, including Matchbox cars by Mattel, Kraft Singles, Bubble Yum, and Apple Jacks. By the early 1990s, he began acting regularly on television.

Career

1991–1996: Early work and breakthrough

Leonardo's first film was Critters 3 in 1991. Later in 1991, he became a cast member of the sitcom Growing Pains.

In 1992, DiCaprio played a small part in the first installment of the Poison Ivy film series. He later played in Robert De Niro's This Boy's Life.

From 1993 - 1996, DiCaprio starred in more films, including What's Eating Gilbert Grape, The Quick and the Dead, and Romeo + Juliet.

1997–2001: Titanic and worldwide recognition

In 1997, DiCaprio starred opposite Kate Winslet in James Cameron's Titanic (1997) as members of different social classes who fall in love aboard RMS Titanic during its ill-fated maiden voyage. Titanic was the highest-grossing film at the time. His role of Jack Dawson transformed DeCaprio into a superstar, resulting in what became known as "Leo-mania:" teenage girls and young women adored him. Titanic became the highest-grossing film at the time. After Titanic, Dicaprio was able to choose the roles he wanted.

DiCaprio at a press conference for The Beach in 2000

In 1998, DiCaprio starred in The Man in the Iron Mask. He played two parts in the movie: the villainous King Louis XIV and his secret, sympathetic twin brother Philippe. He was also cast in American Psycho (2000), but he left the project and starred in The Beach instead.

2002–2009: Venture into film production

DiCaprio attending an event for Gangs of New York with Martin Scorsese and Cameron Diaz at the 2002 Cannes Film Festival

DiCaprio turned down the role of Anakin Skywalker in Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones (2002). His first film that year was the biopic Catch Me If You Can, based on the life of Frank Abagnale Jr., who before his 19th birthday committed check fraud to make millions in the 1960s. The film became the second highest-grossing release after Titanic.

Also in 2002, DiCaprio starred in Martin Scorsese's Gangs of New York, a historical drama set in the mid-19th century in the Five Points district of New York City.

In 2004, DiCaprio founded the production company Appian Way Productions, a namesake of the Italian road. His first producing task was in The Assassination of Richard Nixon. He co-produced and starred in The Aviator next.

In 2006, DiCaprio starred in the crime film The Departed and the political war thriller Blood Diamond.

DiCaprio at the 2007 Tribeca Film Festival

In 2007, DiCaprio produced the comedy-drama Gardener of Eden. Later that year, he produced, co-wrote, and narrated The 11th Hour, a documentary on the state of the natural environment. DiCaprio was also a creator and an executive producer for Planet Green's Greensburg (2008–2010), which ran for three seasons.

In 2008, DiCaprio starred in another movie with Kate Winslet called Revolutionary Road. He finished the 2000s by producing the horror film Orphan in 2009.

2010–2013: Films with high-profile directors

DiCaprio (first from the right) with the cast of Inception at the film's premiere in 2010

After playing roles in the psychological thriller Shutter Island and the science-fiction film Inception in 2010, DiCaprio took a small break from acting to have some time for himself. He returned the following November in Clint Eastwood's J. Edgar, biopic about J. Edgar Hoover. He also produced Catherine Hardwicke's romantic horror film Red Riding Hood, very loosely based on the folk tale Little Red Riding Hood.

2012 and 2013 were more productive years for DiCaprio. In 2012, he starred as a plantation owner in Quentin Tarantino's Spaghetti Western, Django Unchained. In January 2013, DiCaprio said he would take a long break from acting to "fly around the world doing good for the environment." However, he had four releases as an actor and a producer. He starred in The Great Gatsby, produced Runner Runner and Out of the Furnace, and co-produced and starred in The Wolf of Wall Street.

2014–present: Environmental documentaries and awards success

DiCaprio was an executive producer on Virunga, a 2014 British documentary film about four people fighting to protect the world's last mountain gorillas from war and poaching. The film premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival in April 2014, and DiCaprio was nominated for the 2015 Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Documentary or Nonfiction Special. Cowspiracy: The Sustainability Secret was another documentary film that year for which he was an executive producer—he took part in the new cut released exclusively on Netflix that September. It explores the impact of animal agriculture on the environment.

DiCaprio at the French premiere of The Revenant in 2016

In 2015, DiCaprio produced and played fur trapper Hugh Glass in Alejandro G. Iñárritu's survival drama The Revenant. DiCaprio found his role in the film difficult; he had to eat a raw slab of bison's liver and sleep in animal carcasses. He also learned to shoot a musket, build a fire, speak two Native American languages (Pawnee and Arikara) and apply ancient healing techniques. Built on a budget of $135 million, the film earned $533 million worldwide. The film received positive reviews with particular praise for DiCaprio's acting. Mark Kermode of The Guardian wrote that DiCaprio shone with a performance that prioritizes physicality over speech, and Nick De Semlyen of Empire noted that he uplifted the film. The film earned him numerous awards, including the Academy Award, BAFTA, Critics' Choice, Golden Globe and SAG Award for Best Actor. For the next three years, DiCaprio narrated documentaries and served as a producer for films. In 2016, he was an executive producer for The Ivory Game and Catching the Sun; he also produced, hosted and narrated the documentary Before the Flood about climate change. He produced the crime drama Live by Night (2016), which received unenthusiastic reviews and failed to recoup its $65 million production budget. His next production ventures were in 2018—the psychological horror Delirium and the commercially failed action–adventure Robin Hood.

After producing and narrating the 2019 global warming documentary Ice on Fire, DiCaprio returned to acting following a four-year break in Quentin Tarantino's comedy-drama Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, which traces the relationship between Rick Dalton (DiCaprio), an aging television actor and his stuntman, Cliff Booth (Brad Pitt). To help the film's financing, DiCaprio and Pitt agreed to take a pay cut, and they each received $10 million. DiCaprio liked working with Pitt, and Tarantino described the pair as the most exciting since Robert Redford and Paul Newman. DiCaprio was fascinated with the film's homage to Hollywood and focus on the friendship between his and Pitt's characters. He drew from real-life experience of witnessing the struggles and rejections of his actor friends in the industry. The film premiered at the 2019 Cannes Film Festival, where critics praised his and Pitt's performances. A writer for Business Insider called it one of the best performances of DiCaprio's career, and Ian Sandwell of Digital Spy particularly liked the duo's chemistry, believing their scenes together to be some of the film's strongest parts. DiCaprio received nominations for an Oscar, a Golden Globe, a BAFTA Award and a Screen Actors Guild Award for Best Actor. The film earned $374 million against a budget of $90 million.

In 2020, DiCaprio served as an executive producer for The Right Stuff, a television series adaption of the 1973 namesake book. After being in development at National Geographic, it was released on Disney+. That May, DiCaprio briefly featured in the finale of the miniseries The Last Dance. In 2021, DiCaprio appeared in Adam McKay's satirical comedy Don't Look Up. He spent five months changing the film's script with McKay before agreeing to the part. Starring alongside Jennifer Lawrence as two astronomers attempting to warn humanity about an extinction-level comet, DiCaprio saw this film as an analogy of the world's indifference to the climate crisis. As a frequent supporter of environmentalism, DiCaprio said he has often looked to star in and make films tackling issues related to it, something he found hard due to people's inability to listen. He praised McKay for envisioning a project on how humans would react to a serious issue from a political, social and scientific standpoint. While reviews for the film were mixed, most critics praised DiCaprio's and Lawrence's performances; journalists from Digital Spy and NDTV lauded their pairing. DiCaprio earned nominations for a Golden Globe and a BAFTA Award for the film. It broke the record for the most views (152 million hours) in a single week in Netflix history.

DiCaprio next starred in Scorsese's crime drama Killers of the Flower Moon (2023) based on the book of the same name by David Grann, for which he was paid $30 million. Initially signed for the heroic part of FBI agent Thomas Bruce White Sr., DiCaprio insisted on playing the morally complex role of Ernest Burkhart, a nephew of murderer William King Hale, leading to extensive script rewrites. Declaring it the best performance of DiCaprio's career, IndieWire's David Ehrlich wrote that "his nuanced and uncompromising turn as the cretinous Ernest Burkhart mines new wonders from the actor's long-standing lack of vanity". He received another Golden Globe nomination for his performance. DiCaprio will next star in Paul Thomas Anderson's upcoming film The Battle of Baktan Cross, co-starring Sean Penn and Regina Hall.

Other ventures

Activism

An active celebrity in the climate change movement, DiCaprio believes global warming is the world's "number-one environmental challenge". Eager to learn about ecology from an early age, he would watch documentaries on rainforest depletion and the loss of species and habitats. In 1998, he established the Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation, a non-profit organization devoted to promoting environmental awareness. It supports organizations and campaigns committed to ensuring a viable future for planet Earth, and produced the short web documentaries Water Planet and Global Warning. The foundation has also funded debt-for-nature swaps. By 2018, the foundation had funded more than 200 projects, providing $100 million in support. He has been an active supporter of numerous environmental organizations and sat on the board of the World Wildlife Fund and International Fund for Animal Welfare.

DiCaprio has owned environment-friendly electric-hybrid vehicles. His use of private jets and large yachts have been criticized as hypocritical due to their large carbon footprints. DiCaprio chaired the national Earth Day celebration in 2000 where he interviewed Bill Clinton and they discussed plans to deal with global warming and the environment. He presented at the 2007 American leg of Live Earth. DiCaprio donated $1 million to the Wildlife Conservation Society at Russia's Tiger Summit. DiCaprio's persistence in reaching the event after encountering two plane delays caused then Prime Minister Vladimir Putin to describe him as a "muzhik" or "real man". In 2013, he organized a benefit fine art auction, "11th Hour", which raised nearly $38.8 million for his foundation. In September 2014, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon designated DiCaprio as a United Nations Messenger of Peace with a focus on climate change. Later that month, he made an opening statement to members of the UN Climate Summit; his speech reached an estimated one billion people worldwide. In 2015, he announced his intention to divest from fossil fuels. He again spoke at the UN in April 2016 prior to the signing of the Paris Climate Change Agreement.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and DiCaprio at the Our Ocean Conference in 2016

At a 2016 meeting with Pope Francis, DiCaprio donated to charity and discussed environmental issues with him. A few days later, possibly influenced by this meeting, the Pope said he would act in a charity film. DiCaprio traveled to Indonesia in early 2016 where he criticized the government's palm oil industry's slash-and-burn forest clearing methods. In July 2016, his foundation donated $15.6 million to help protect wildlife and the rights of Native Americans, along with mitigating climate change. That October, DiCaprio joined Mark Ruffalo in support of the Standing Rock tribe's opposition to the Dakota Access Pipeline.

In April 2017, DiCaprio protested against President Donald Trump's inaction on climate change by attending the People's Climate March. In July, a charity auction and celebrity concert arranged by DiCaprio's foundation had raised over $30 million in one night. The DiCaprio foundation donated $100 million in December 2018 to fight climate change. In May 2021, DiCaprio pledged $43 million to enact conservation operations across the Galápagos Islands.

Political views

DiCaprio endorsed Hillary Clinton for the 2016 presidential election. In March 2020, DiCaprio attended a fundraiser for Joe Biden at the home of Paramount Pictures executive Sherry Lansing. Prior to the 2020 election, DiCaprio narrated a Netflix documentary series about voting rights, stating, "All of us may have been created equal. But we'll never actually be equal until we all vote. So don't wait." On social media, DiCaprio urged voters to make a plan to cast their ballots and to draw attention to voter suppression and restrictive voter ID laws, citing VoteRiders as a source of information and assistance. In 2023, DiCaprio testified during the trial against Prakazrel Michel, who is being accused of participating in a foreign influence campaign that was aimed at the Obama and Trump administrations.

In October 2024, DiCaprio formally endorsed Democratic nominee Kamala Harris for president, citing her policies on climate change mitigation, while criticizing her Republican opponent Donald Trump.

Philanthropy

In 1998, DiCaprio and his mother donated $35,000 for a "Leonardo DiCaprio Computer Center" at a library in Los Feliz. In May 2009, DiCaprio joined Kate Winslet, director James Cameron and Canadian singer Celine Dion, in a campaign to raise money to financially support the fees of the nursing home where Millvina Dean, a survivor of the RMS Titanic, was residing. DiCaprio and Winslet donated $20,000 to support Dean. In 2010, he donated $1 million to relief efforts in Haiti after the earthquake. In 2011, DiCaprio joined the Animal Legal Defense Fund's campaign to release Tony, a tiger that had spent the last decade at a truck stop in Grosse Tête, Louisiana. DiCaprio donated $61,000 to the gay rights group GLAAD in 2013.

In 2016, DiCaprio donated $65,000 to the annual fundraising gala for the Children of Armenia Fund, where he was a special guest of his friend and honorary chair, Tony Shafrazi. Supporting Hurricane Harvey (2017) relief efforts, DiCaprio provided $1 million through his foundation. In 2020, DiCaprio's foundation donated $3 million to Australia bushfire relief efforts. Amidst the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, the media announced DiCaprio donated $10 million to support Ukraine, although the news agency Associated Press suggested this amount was inaccurate.

Personal life

DiCaprio in 2008

DiCaprio is agnostic but does not identify as an atheist. His personal life is the subject of widespread media attention. He rarely grants interviews and is reluctant to discuss his private life.

DiCaprio has been the focus of various reports detailing his involvement with women aged 25 or younger, and has faced criticism for those relationships. In 1999, DiCaprio met Brazilian model Gisele Bündchen, whom he dated until 2005. He was romantically involved with Israeli model Bar Refaeli from 2005 to 2011. He later dated German fashion model Toni Garrn from 2013 to 2014 and later in 2017. DiCaprio was in a relationship with American model and actress Camila Morrone from 2017 until 2022. He has been dating Italian model Vittoria Ceretti since August 2023.

DiCaprio owns houses in Los Angeles and apartments in New York City. In 2009, he bought an island, Blackadore Caye, off mainland Belize—on which he is set to open an environment-friendly resort—and in 2014, he purchased the original Dinah Shore residence designed by architect Donald Wexler in Palm Springs, California.

In 2005, DiCaprio's face was severely injured when model Aretha Wilson hit him over the head with a broken bottle at a Hollywood party. As a result, he required seventeen stitches to his face and neck. Wilson pleaded guilty to the assault and was sentenced in 2010 to two years in prison.

In 2017, when The Wolf of Wall Street producer Red Granite Pictures was involved in the 1Malaysia Development Berhad scandal, DiCaprio turned over the gifts he received from business associates at the production company, including from fugitive businessman Jho Low, to the US government. These included a Best Actor Oscar trophy won by Marlon Brando, a $3.2 million Pablo Picasso painting, and a $9 million Jean-Michel Basquiat collage.

Filmography and accolades

According to the online portal Box Office Mojo and the review aggregate site Rotten Tomatoes, DiCaprio's most critically and commercially successful films include What's Eating Gilbert Grape (1993), Romeo + Juliet (1996), Titanic (1997), Catch Me If You Can (2002), Gangs of New York (2002), The Aviator (2004), The Departed (2006), Blood Diamond (2006), Shutter Island (2010), Inception (2010), Django Unchained (2012), The Great Gatsby (2013), The Wolf of Wall Street (2013), The Revenant (2015), Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (2019), Don't Look Up (2021), and Killers of the Flower Moon (2023). His films have grossed $7.2 billion worldwide. DiCaprio has been recognized by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for the following performances:

• 66th Academy Awards (1994): Best Supporting Actor, nomination, for What's Eating Gilbert Grape
• 77th Academy Awards (2005): Best Actor, nomination, for The Aviator
• 79th Academy Awards (2007): Best Actor, nomination, for Blood Diamond
• 86th Academy Awards (2014): Best Picture and Best Actor, nominations, for The Wolf of Wall Street
• 88th Academy Awards (2016): Best Actor, win, for The Revenant
• 92nd Academy Awards (2020): Best Actor, nomination, for Once Upon a Time in Hollywood

DiCaprio has won three Golden Globe Awards: Best Actor – Motion Picture Drama for The Aviator and The Revenant and Best Actor – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy for The Wolf of Wall Street, as well as a BAFTA Award and a Screen Actors Guild Award for Best Actor for The Revenant.

See also

In Spanish: Leonardo DiCaprio para niños

• List of oldest and youngest Academy Award winners and nominees – Youngest nominees for Best Actor in a Supporting Role
• List of actors with Academy Award nominations
• List of actors with two or more Academy Awards nominations in acting categories
• List of Golden Globe winners
• Grouvellinus leonardodicaprioi, a beetle named after DiCaprio
• Spintharus leonardodicaprioi, a spider named after DiCaprio