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Leo's well-known for imitating his directors especially. Remember reading Baz talk about Leo imitating him and entertaining the cast and crew, or Danny Boyle talking about Leo imitating HarveyW on the phone so well that it fooled Boyle, or stories about Leo imitating Cameron behind his back (maybe as revenge against what cameron were making him and Kate suffer in the water take after take) or Randall Wallace (MITIM) talk about Leo's perfect imitation of him. Watched a Japanese interview from 1997 where he did takes on Michael Jackson, DeNiro and Nicholson perfectly. Interesting question about TBL yapi - now those are the kind of questions people should ask, not the same ho-hum ones over and over again at press interviews. Agree that Leo's razzi for the Beach is ridiculous. the movie was deeply flawed in my opinion but nothing wrong with Leo's performance and far above so many actors. It all stems from the leomania phenomenon. Example: people claiming Scorsese only works with Leo because of money..... as if, Leo is the only actor in Hollywood who has the power to get films made and financed., to say nothing about what it would say about Scorsese as a human being if that were true, especially considering all the great things he has said about Leo as an actor.Does it hurt that Leo has that status in Hollywood, of course not. But I doubt very much Scorsese would continually make films (his life!!) with an actor he didnt respect deeply.

Iimitating
Hey, were did you read that? about leo imitating all of them.

I've known a couple of South African people in my life and I think Leo's accent sounds awesome. I was nervous he wouldn't pull it off due to the fact that his accent in Gangs was a bit off, but I think he nailed this one. He must be getting better with age.

When I said it would have been better for Leo to play the character in The Beach as written, I meant that it might have knocked the wind out of some of his big critics a bit. I think a lot of people didn't like the movie because it wasn't enough like the book. They weren't pleased about the change in the character of Richard, who was distinctly British in the book (making a bit more sense as well, since at that time Thailand was the destination for young European backpackers, not young American backpackers). And it's not as if he couldn't have done the accent. I believe he absolutely could have after hearing the accent in BD. He still would have been criticized for something or other, but it might have shown that he was more than the sum of Titanic. I know that he wanted to play the character much darker than the film allowed, and that too is a pity that he didn't get to do it, imo.

yapi - I have this interview on tape. I'll send you a PM with details. I could see a difference in Leo in interviews pre-Titanic and after. Maybe he felt (wrongly, in my opinion) that he could not be as free-form as he was before; his answers and comments in interviews seem rehearsed carefully now and quite honestly, boring. You can see this most of all in his print interviews. Post Titanic, sadly, he's lost his zip and quircky (odd) humor he displayed earlier. I hope to heaven you are right about The Blood Diamond. Because of the director and his past work, I was not excited or hopeful about this project. Have you seen his The Last Samurai? It's a perfectly well-intentioned film but I disliked very much the whole concept of the story, with Cruise as the white American savior and the unimaginative way it was directed, very much Hallmark-style drama.You are right that for a film to be released in mid -December, there has been very little talk about the film.

eh.... as far Departed connections I'm more looking forward to The Good Shepherd. It's not cause the movie looks bad, it's looks like the crew spent some time making it and they really filtered it through with lots of funky filterrs to give it a good look, and DiCaprio's South Effrican accent is decent but not great (lived there for 2 years while younger and 1 of best friends in Europe was South African as well) but as long as he doesn't fluctuate in and out he should be fine. It's just I kind've have a thing against director Ed Zwick's love of WHITEY. Now I'm white. But his films are all these masquerades of celebrating other cultures by in turn celebrating the greatness of white involvment. Glory- nice movie, should've really been about the black battalion but was really Matthew Broderick's movie. Last Samurai was borderline offensive with Tom Cruise being the Last Samurai. And now it looks like this movie is going to focus on the harsh diamond trade (anybody who reads a newspaper should not be shocked to hear this) but to garner American symapthy is really going to be a story of Whitey (Leo D) coming to terms with his humanity and saving the poor African. I don't know. I'll see the movie but there's certainly a lot other more interesting and less cliche movies coming out in the next few months. Plus shouldn't a movie about the harsh unjust human treatment of Africans in the diamond trade involve more talk about the diamond trade and not someones accent?

OFL- the topic started here on the accent because when the trailer came out, many of the reactions on movie sites complained about the accent. I agree with you about what bothers you about Zwick films but looking at the trailer and reading some of the reviews of people who saw an early cut, it seems like Djimon has actually a lot of impact in this film, equal or more to Leo's character, so it may be different in that way - let's hope so. The fact that people on this thread were discussing the accent doesn't mean the real importance of the film doesn't matter to us. I'm sure when we're access to see the film, then there will be lot of discussions about the content and the important issues involved. yapi and artreborn, my take was that Boyle changed Richard from to an American because he sought Leo for the role and also in some way, give a reason to Ewan McGregor as to why he didn't get the role since to this day Ewan somehow thinks Boyle should have automatically cast him in that role.

As to Leo's accent, I think it's fine and I've been around S. Africans, too. However, it makes sense to point out that S. Africans have different dialects depending on where they're from -- Cape Town or Jo'berg with the latter sounding different. It's not easy to pull off. Defending Zwick is tough because I haven't liked all his films -- Legends of the Fall was a real slog for me. The Last Samurai just lost ground in the final third of the film, but it's interesting that the best character wasn't Tom Cruise but the Japanese Samurai played by Ken Watanabe -- he also got the oscar nod. Glory was fine, however, and I don't believe he overemphasized Matthew Broderick's role since the film largely hewed close to the true facts of what happened if you actually bother to read the history books. His character was a true abolitionist and recognized early that having a black battalion was important to the war and certainly black men wanted to fight in the war and up to that point had been denied the possibility. The characters who come through most strongly in the film were the black men as played by Denzel Washington, Morgan Freeman, etc. Their struggles were the centerpoint of the film as much as Brodericks, if you ask me. So I don't fault Zwick for being all for "whitey". That's a lot of B.S. as far as I'm concerned. I think Djimon Hounsou will come through loud and clear in Diamond, so I'm not concerned with that aspect at all.

an article with comments of Stephen collins about "Blood diamond" (he played a part in it) http://www.dailynews.com/celebrities/ci_4390179 "Leonardo DiCaprio is turning a huge page in his career," predicts Stephen Collins of DiCaprio's portrayal in the upcoming Ed Zwick drama "Blood Diamond." "He is really, 100 percent, this interesting, complicated white African Rhodesian soldier of fortune in this movie. He reminds me of William Holden in `The Bridge on the River Kwai'; he's got that kind of presence," says the "7th Heaven" star, who's featured in the film that also stars Jennifer Connelly and Djimon Hounsou. Collins, who's playing a U.S. trade ambassador in the controversial film about the blood spilled and lives lost in the mining and sale of the precious gems, says "the diamond industry is preparing for this movie much the same way the Catholic Church prepared for `The Da Vinci Code."' He explains, "Blood diamonds are mined illegally and sold on the black market, often from a country at war to finance war or rebellion." He adds the movie, opening Dec. 15, is "an amazing film. It's got a heavy political message and heavy social message, a hint of a love story, and it's all wrapped up in this big, huge, action story." ----- I just hope it will have a better reception by the critics than "the da vinci code " :) and well I think you all saw the interview where dicaprio talked a little bit about the "blood diamond" at the end http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7U7D8ezH9tA --- OT : about talents of dicaprio for imitation....in this interview with david letterman (1995) at the 3:56 min, you could see him doing a great bob de niro's imitation http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QP1uust0ep4

William Holden.....High praise indeed!!!

The 'Blood Diamond' trailer will debut with The Departed.

It makes sense they'd want BD to ride on the coattails of Departed for obvious reasons. It'll be interesting to see how that goes over. :idea: