Leonardo DiCaprio
My everlasting love
© Julien M. Hekimian / Getty Images
Our author loves Leonardo DiCaprio. Since 25 years. Maybe even more today than on the first day. Could be because it’s some kind of long distance relationship.
When I watched the moment on Youtube again when Leonardo DiCaprio finally got the Oscar, I watched myself: I had moved to the very end of my chair, my hands were folded and I felt a distant smile on my face. I was a little shocked at the realization that even after 25 years I am still as much a fan girl as I was as a teenager, half-heartedly tried to find my way back to a state of sanity and dignity, but then let it go. Basically, my behavior was only appropriate – given this magnificence.
No place for another man
Since Leo looked at me through an aquarium with slightly parted lips in 1996, my world has not been the same. Even if this look was not aimed at me, but at Claire Danes, who was in a situation while filming “Romeo + Juliet” for which I would still give life and limb. I was 17 years old at the time and in the cinema with my boyfriend. It was the last movie we saw together. After that, my heart didn’t have any room for a man other than the one who was so beautiful that he actually belonged in a museum.
For the first and only time I became a real fan. Mark Owen, Johnny Depp, Nick Carter – none of them could trigger a changed heart rate in me. Only Leonardo DiCaprio hit like a bomb. I painted it with pencil, charcoal and ink, and in art class at the Waldorf School I made a bust of Leo out of clay. I made a pilgrimage to Oer-Erkenschwick to look his grandma Helene in the living room window (nothing brought me, third floor!), At 19 I booked a flight to Los Angeles to breathe the same air as him.
When I got my first job at a magazine, I saw my big moment come: We young editors got to meet the star of our youth. The wishes of the colleagues could be fulfilled, only mine was too big. In the end I was sitting in a pedal boat swan with Patrick Bach, my back-up, and at least tried to feel the crackling of the dying embers that a fire like Leo would have left in me. The only consolation was that I asked my actual idol “Would you have liked me back then?” did not have to ask.
Leo, the savior of the world!
No, he wouldn’t have liked me. Because Leo likes top models and I’m not. I don’t blame him for this little weakness, because my admiration for him falls into a similar category. Even if it helps my euphoria that he is committed to climate protection, I love him for less venerable reasons: Back then for every single, perfect strand of hair, for the way he smoked, breathed. Today for this Hollywood icon elegance, paired with a coolness, for which others would first have to tuck three surfboards under their arms. My god, Leo!
My heart is still beating faster at every rental bike station, as I know that he is constantly gurgling through the metropolises of the world with these things. He, the best actor of our time, the savior of the world! I can hardly understand that someone does not share my enthusiasm. If it had been up to me, he would not have been kept waiting for the Oscar for decades, but would have been sent to Mama Irmelin 46 years ago directly to the maternity ward. Simply for its existence.
LENA SCHINDLER just found out that her Leo box has disappeared from her parents’ attic. Scandal!