This is the biggest regret of the star of “Killers of the Flower Moon”: in 1997, Leonardo DiCaprio hesitated for a long time between James Cameron’s “Titanic” and Paul Thomas Anderson’s “Boogie Nights”.
If Leonardo DiCaprio is a huge star today, it is largely thanks to his performance in Titanic, the starting point of a meteoric rise. But did you know that he was very hesitant to play in James Cameron’s film and that his career could therefore have taken a completely different turn? In the 90s, the American actor had the choice between Titanic and Paul Thomas Anderson’s Boogie Nights, in which he would have played the main role, namely… a porn star!
Leo’s regrets
Obviously, DiCaprio (who also refused to play in Star Wars) cannot regret having chosen Titanic, the film which allowed him to become one of the biggest names in the seventh art. However, not having filmed in Boogie Nights still sticks in his throat.
“My biggest regret is Boogie Nights”he declared a few years ago on ShowbizSpy. “I’m a huge fan of Paul Thomas Anderson, but when I first met him for this role, I wasn’t familiar with his work. Now I love this film.”
In 2022, Paul Thomas Anderson confirmed in the Smartless podcast that the lead role in Boogie Nights had been refused by the actor. “It’s absolutely true, I asked Leo to be in the film and he spent many months hesitating and debating about it”declared the American filmmaker.
This director has directed Brad Pitt, Tom Cruise and DiCaprio and he’s not Martin Scorsese!
“Eventually, I discovered during this long phase of doubt that he had a choice to make between Titanic and Boogie Nights, and he chose to do Titanic”continues Paul Thomas Anderson. “Which, in the long term, catapulted him into this enormous worldwide fame. We both laugh about it today, but it’s possible that he regrets having missed out on this experience.”
Good news for DiCaprio!
It was ultimately Mark Wahlberg who was chosen to play in Boogie Nights the character of Eddie Adams, a young dishwasher in a nightclub in the suburbs of Los Angeles who would become an X-rated movie star under the pseudonym Dirk Diggler. But good news for DiCaprio, more than a quarter of a century after his missed meeting with Paul Thomas Anderson, he will finally work under the direction of the filmmaker in a feature film whose shooting should begin next month!
Mélanie Laurent’s favorite movie scene comes from “Boogie Nights”: