7 Super Tips.
Leonardo DiCaprio.
That's a gif hint for you.
Oh gosh that
looks weird but... let's do that again.
Welcome to today's 7 Super Tips I'm your host Erik Qualman.
A lot of you know me has Equalman.
Today's guest... that's a gif hint for you,
Today's guest is Oscar award winning Leonardo Dicaprio and he's going to give
us 7 Super Tips to help unlock and unleash your inner superpower.
Being an actor is the first thing that I remember wanting to do in life. I remember it
14-15 years old, watching some classic films. Well, spending months and
months watching all the great classics. All the great performers of the past and
being so incredibly inspired by them and saying to myself one day I want to come
close to doing something that good so that I think that that thirst or that
drive to just achieve what I believe is something as good as you know those
heroes that I have is what continues to make me want to want to do this.
You know it's interesting because I remember you know you're sort of set up and you're
put into this system where I think that you're supposed to be a
jack-of-all-trades and you're eleven twelve years old and you're sort of
conditioned to say well you know the casting directors there and say well can
you juggling you're like absolutely I can juggle you know you know can you ski
hell yeah you know
you know little tap-dancing show so you're supposed to like set yourself up
as somebody that can you know you know basically do anything that they want and
I remember sort of having that attitude for a while and I didn't book a job for
like a year at like 12 13 years old I know that's not yeah it's like a big sob
story but but the truth is it was that year of like like rejection where I
finally said to my I kind of I suppose I took a different attitude towards the
audition process and I started to get jobs after that and I think it was
really because I said to myself you know I'm not dependent on this job you know
I'm not this isn't gonna define me you know and
I started to sell myself less prepare more for the for the roles you know you
know really investigate the characters as much as I could and not feel like you
know my self-worth was dependent on whether I booked the job or not and I
think that's finally what clicked with me and I realized that casting directors
weren't always necessarily looking for the you know the Broadway show men that
could do whatever they wanted but somebody that had you know I don't want
to say a little edge to them but you know a different attitude about the
audition process.
I never knew that I could do it as a career. I never knew it
was the first memory that I had it's the first thing I can think of as saying I
want to be an actor to my parents and if I hadn't lived in Los Angeles and been
in such close proximity to sort of the mecca of moviemaking if I didn't have
parents that said okay we'll drive you to auditions we didn't have the economic
means to you know move camp from Idaho to Los Angeles because some snotty
ten-year-old kids is how I mean we we did it night after school I got to go on
auditions but it was always and I've said this before it felt like an elite
group of people and it felt like I would never belong to them so once I got the
opportunity to to for example get the movie this boy's life
with Robert De Niro I said wow now I'm able to not
I might be able to steer the course of my career I might be able to have a
career similar to these guys that I'm you know I so admire and that I knew
what 15 years old was the biggest gift in the world and that that's that's
never left me you know I've never I've never that that thirst or that hunger
for wanting to give one great performance that I'm truly satisfied
with or being one movie that I said I love this film is something that I don't
know will ever be quenched I don't know and that's I think that that's a good
thing because it keeps making it keeps pushing you you know.
if it weren't for
the fact that I had a mother that really took the time to listen to a kid that
said you know I want to do this for a living this is what I know I want to do
this is my passion you know 10 11 year old kid if it hadn't been for her taking
me to auditions in the sheer proximity of being going to a school that accepted
me in Beverly Hills and then being able to drive to the valley or drive to you
know Hollywood on the way back from school I probably wouldn't be doing this
for a living because um you know if I live in any other location I don't think
my dream would have been a possibility you know it's a combination of you know
being in the right place at the right right time and being prepared for it and
and being aggressive about it and sticking with it you know I I don't know
I mean I'd done a lot of television and commercials before then but it was
really this one role that launched my career in that career and that was this
boy's life and that was the truth that matters now I was at the right place at
the right time and aggressively going out on auditions
everything at the end of the day when you're making a movie starts with the
material and and at how well written the script is. I've never seen a silk purse
made from a sow a year. I've never seen it happen where in a crap script with
crap characters a director somehow found a way to make a masterpiece out of it
and that's the constant struggle that we all sort of have his actors is finding
those gems and that's why people grab onto them like vultures when you find a
great piece of material or a great script it's like.
That was yeah I mean
that was one of those incredible auditions that came around that I
suppose every kid had been waiting for for a long period of time because it's
just not that often that you get a starring role above Robert De Niro in
this incredible you know screenplay and was a you know Ellen Barkin and Michael
Keaton Jones and was just everyone was sort of feeding for this role and I got
down I suppose to the final five and there was like a last sort of day Toby
was there and I I do remember thinking to myself I got to do something I got to
do something to stand out and in the audition there was art lence and Michael
Keaton Jones art Lata's that was the producer and DeNiro and I remember there
was a mustard jar scene and he had to jam a mustard jar in my eye repeatedly
it was an abuse scene and the script so didn't call for it but I got up and I he
said now is it empty is it empty and I got up and I screamed Oh like completely
unnecessary but I screamed in his face and i sat there you know with my head
you know looking like a red tomato and and and everyone started laughing at me
and then the entire room de niro everybody was in hysterics i sat there
frozen's thinking oh my god I just screwed this entire
and I just sat there frozen and then you know Bob and traditional DeNiro fashion
kind of just looked at me went and and then you know we carried on doing the
scene and I think I actually had dinner with DeNiro recently and he told me no I
was the one who said I was the one who said you should get to get the job which
is very sweet.
I think everyone can always you know brush up on their
technique. It is you know what we do is takes a lot of research. I mean
if you really want to inhabit a role, it takes a lot of work and
training and I think it's incredibly important to constantly no matter what
how successful you are it's incredibly important.
The summer and summer movie
season is coming to an end. What a bummer! But what's not a bummer
is these 7 Super Tips because I hope they help unlock and unleash your inner
super power to really kick start in the Fall. Right here. Right now.
Do your best ever. This is Equalman
reminding all of us it's not what we take for the world it's what we leave behind.
Summer is coming to a close. What a bummer! but my hope is not a bummer is
these 7 Super Tips from award-winning... Award-winning? Oscar winning!
Leonardo DiCaprio? all right whoops I
said it sorry small smirk in three two one
smirking is weird all right