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Actor Biography - Leonardo DiCaprio |
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Leonardo DiCaprio most recently has been seen on screen as Howard Hughes in the award-winning motion picture The Aviator. DiCaprio received a Golden Globe award and is nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actor for his portrayal.
DiCaprio was born in Hollywood, California in 1974 and took summer courses in performance art while attending Seeds Elementary School at UCLA. He then advanced to the Center for Enriched Studies in Los Angeles. After Seeds, DiCaprio attended John Marshall High School in Los Feliz. While in high school DiCaprio acted in his first real play, Circus Fantasy and, in 1988, at fourteen, DiCaprio began appearing in a series of commercials and educational films. Later that year, he made his television debut in the syndicated Saturday morning revival of Lassie.
In 1990, after appearing on NBC's daytime drama Santa Barbara, DiCaprio was chosen for a small role on the prime-time series The Outsider and then became a regular character on Parenthood.
DiCaprio first appeared on the big screen in the film Critters III, in 1991, and shortly after, he joined the cast of the ABC sitcom Growing Pains. Michael Caton-Jones then cast DiCaprio in the role of Tobias Wolff in his big-screen adaptation of Wolff's best-selling novel This Boy's Life, starring alongside Robert De Niro and Ellen Barkin.
In 1993, Swedish director Lasse Hallstrom cast DiCaprio in the role of Arnie in the drama What's Eating Gilbert Grape? His performance earned him an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor at the age of nineteen.
In 1995, DiCaprio kept busy in several highly acclaimed films. He appeared in Sam Raimi’s The Quick and the Dead, opposite Sharon Stone and Gene Hackman, and the same year starred in the film adaptation of Jim Carroll's autobiographical memoir The Basketball Diaries. His next role was as the deeply troubled pan-sexual poet Arthur Rimbaud in Agnieska Holland's film version of Christopher Hampton's play Total Eclipse. DiCaprio was then paired with Claire Danes for Baz Luhrmann’s screen adaptation of William Shakespeare’s Romeo + Julie. He was also featured the same year as Meryl Streep's delinquent son in Marvin's Room, costarring Diane Keaton and Robert De Niro.
In 1996, DiCaprio starred in James Cameron's Academy Award winning film Titanic opposite Kate Winslet. Next, he starred in The Man in the Iron Mask with Gerard Depardieu, Jeremy Irons and John Malkovich. DiCaprio then starred in Woody Allen's Celebrity , before beginning production in 1999 on Danny Boyle's screen adaptation of The Beach, the best-selling novel by Alex Garland, which was filmed in Thailand.
In 2002, DiCaprio starred Martin Scorsese’s Gangs of New York and Steven Spielberg’s Catch Me If You Can, which earned him a Golden Globe nomination as Best Actor. He was also seen in 2006 in the Scorsese film The Departed.
