Howard Hughes is widely known as the eccentric billionaire who became a mysterious recluse but, until the film The Aviator, few knew the full story of Howard Hughes. Many did not know Howard Hughes the industrialist, Howard Hughes the young man in love with risk, beauty and technology, nor Howard Hughes the man who made bold leaps in business, aviation and movies, only to loose himself in a world of fear and paranoia. Leonardo DiCaprio had a large role in bringing these aspects of Hughes’ life to the recognition of the general public in the Academy Award winning film The Aviator.

After reading the biography of Hughes over a decade ago, DiCaprio became very interested in making a film about Hughes and his unique American life. Knowing that several high-profile members of Hollywood have previously tried to make movies about Hughes, DiCaprio remained passionate in his quest to make a film dealing with the several interesting facets of Howard Hughes. This passion is where the project that became the movie The Aviator originated.

The Aviator Begins To Take Flight
DiCaprio originally brought the idea to director Michael Mann, who in turn brought in screenwriter John Logan of Gladiator fame. DiCaprio and Mann together realized their vision for the Hughes project. They wanted to approach it in a different fashion than those in the past by focusing on what they believed was Hughes’ creative and visionary youth rather than only on his descent into madness in later years. Mann decided to produce the film rather than direct and both he and DiCaprio, after careful consideration, picked Martin Scorsese as the film’s director. Scorsese agreed. With this group ready to collaborate, DiCaprio began to have his long-time dream realized.

DiCaprio Portrays Howard Hughes
Because Howard Hughes had fascinated Leonardo DiCaprio for a decade DiCaprio knew that he wanted to portray Hughes in the film. He pursued the role with a passion, becoming an executive producer on the film. However, as The Aviator progressed, DiCaprio still felt a bit overwhelmed by the complexity and enormity of the character. Hughes was a man of huge contradictions. Being both brave and ill-fated, Hughes was a man with immense vision and, at the same time, immense pain and mental anguish. DiCaprio recognized many challenges in the creation of his character, and struggled to portray the largely unknown aspects of Hughes while still understanding that Hughes was renowned worldwide as a symbol of great wealth and eccentricity.

“So many people already have a strong impression of Howard Hughes – and that alone made the role intimidating,” says DiCaprio in Miramax press documents. “To me, this meant I had to come off as authentic as possible.”

It was vitally important to DiCaprio that he portray Hughes as accurately as possible and to do this the actor lived and breathed Howard Hughes for months. DiCaprio read biographies on the man and his life, listened to tape recordings, watched old movies, and even went to the extreme of learning how to fly the daredevil aerial maneuvers that Hughes attempted. DiCaprio found himself relating to aspects of Hughes’ life that dealt with struggles with celebrity and interactions with the prodding and invasive media. “He was the last private man in America,” DiCaprio comments. “Despite his ambition, he had a strong need for solitude and I can definitely empathize with that.”

Producer Graham King was impressed from the beginning by DiCaprio’s drive to play Howard Hughes. “You could tell this wasn’t just another actor going after a normal role – he was truly passionate about it,” says King. “He lived this screenplay for so many years that there was a lot of emotion behind it. When Leo would talk about Howard there was a sparkle in his eyes and you could really envision him in the part. Once on the set, it was just remarkable how he carried it off, transitioning from a young man full of ideas to the older Howard with his demons.”

DiCaprio Reveals Hughes’ Emotional Demons
DiCaprio greatly enjoyed working on and was most challenged by the emotional and intimate scenes when Hughes is all alone dealing with his own fears and neurosis. Putting aside all the glamour and high stakes adventures in Hughes’ life, it is these intimate moments that DiCaprio found important for the film and his desire to show Howard Hughes in his entirety. “The best times for me were when we were filming the isolated Howard Hughes – then, it was Scorsese and I working together in the zone, so to speak, making things up as they came along, improvising, digging very, very deep,” he says. “For me, those are the greatest of memories making this film.”

DiCaprio even consulted with experts in the field of obsessive-compulsive disorder to better understand the illness that troubled Hughes even as he was making pioneering efforts in aviation and film. “Leo knew that he had to play Hughes dead-on,” says Producer Graham King. “He gives a surprisingly emotional performance that I think really captures the man. And I have to say that I’ve never seen an actor work as hard as Leo did everyday on The Aviator.”

The idea that burned inside the heart and mind of Leonardo DiCaprio ever since he picked up a biography on Howard Hughes’ life and times was realized when he was given the opportunity to play Hughes’ in The Aviator. He was determined to give to audiences a full picture of Hughes’ and struggled to portray the many aspects of Hughes’ complex lifestyle and personality. DiCaprio saw Hughes as a representation of the kind of adventurous, risk-taking, extreme personality that can make a large impact on the world and he wanted that impact to be recognized, stating, “He was an incredibly complex man, but the one thing I think you can say about him is that he took chances that nobody else dared to imagine during his time. He loved aviation and movies, and he made a lasting mark in both worlds.”