He was instantly distracted and started to babble. Sensing the lapse, he flashed a teeny smile, immediately apologized and asked if the question could be repeated.
It’s moments like this when the youthful exuberance of the actor who proclaimed himself "king of the world" in the 1997 global blockbuster Titanic, surfaces. The 45-minute interview was marked by humorless talks about the conditions in Africa and DiCaprio’s passion towards the environment.
Someone asked him: If he were to choose between becoming the President of the US or the pope, what would he pick and why?
"I’d love to be the President and try to shift the US into having a better environmental policy because we are way behind all the countries in the world. We are the biggest contributor of fuel emissions that contribute to global warming, yet we are just five percent of the world population. So, I would try to shift this country and invest in green technology and other stuff of that nature. I wouldn’t know what to do with the rest of the problems in the world. I would just come in for one day and be out," he quipped.
DiCaprio is not kidding. He and former US Vice President Al Gore are spearheading a global campaign to address the frightening dangers of global warming.
The actor may have acquired some fine lines on his forehead and his voice may have matured, but the Leonardo DiCaprio the world discovered 10 years ago – the juvenile stride, the earnestness in his voice and that baffling sense of childlike charm is still pretty much there no matter how serious he gets and how weighty the issues that he had to address during the interview were.
Hollywood’s youngest superstar, stars in Warner Bros.’ gritty, historical thriller Blood Diamond, which opens in the Philippines on Jan. 8.
Set against the backdrop of ’90s Sierra Leone in Africa, Blood Diamond tells the story of Danny Archer (DiCaprio), a rough and tough ex-mercenary and Solomon Vandy (Djimon Hounsou), a local fisherman and a caring family man. They are both African yet vastly different in motivations and ideals. Their fates get intertwined when the discovery of a rare pink diamond casts a life-altering effect on their lives.
Archer sees the diamond as his ticket to get out of Africa while Vandy sees the stone as the only thing that would enable him to reclaim the life he once had.
"It was extremely difficult to perfect the accent. I had a dialect coach around to help me out," DiCaprio reveals.
He had to spend months in Africa to immerse himself in the culture and meet the real Danny Archers. What he learned was more than necessary for him to play the character as real as possible.
What he saw and what he experienced while filming the movie in Mozambique, one of the poorest countries in the world, left him an indelible image that prompted him to set up a charitable foundation for African children.
"What impressed me the most is that amongst all the atrocities in Africa: the hardship of the people; their having to deal with poverty – and it is estimated that four out of 10 people in Africa have HIV or AIDS, was the people’s attitude about life there," he says.
"I see people dancing in the streets. They are so happy to be alive. They have such a positive outlook in life and when I got back to America, where we are all so much more fortunate than we ever realize, and that made me think that it’s really up to more fortunate countries in the world and their more fortunate people to give back. It’s when you get to a place like that when we realize how fortunate we are."
He adds: "How do I decide? Just connect to what speaks to you. There was this little girl in Mozambique that affected me. She was one of the girls working in the movie, and I came to find out that both her parents passed away from AIDS and she was living in this orphanage. How can you not be drawn to helping out in situations like that?"
Blood Diamond deals with a controversial movie theme: the trading of conflict diamonds. In the late ‘80s and most of the ‘90s, when most parts of Africa was embroiled in chaos, bands of mercenaries routinely kidnapped people and forced them to mine diamonds which would then be traded for firearms. These diamonds, coming from war zones, were called Conflict Diamonds. As the war raged on, those poor diamond miners who were caught stealing were subjected to brutal torture and elaborate executions. These brought further notoriety to the stone, thus earning the term Blood Diamond.
"It is a rare combination to have a film that is both entertaining and having a compelling story to tell," says DiCaprio. "We are talking about a specific period in time that is based on real events and its impact on the people. You are moved by these people’s stories. It might change how you might view the responsibility of big corporations to people and to the environment where they are extracting natural resources like gold or diamond and not going into a war zone and not take advantage of the situation. It is the added benefit of doing this film."
What begun as a conventional script about two men trying to find a rare pink diamond evolved into a complex story of courage and survival amidst the chaos and atrocity of ’90s Sierra Leone civil war.
"There are some conventions in this movie that make it appealing to an audience, but at no time did we say that, ‘Okay, well, we have to do this to get people to the theater.’ There was an intense commitment to the subject matter and Africa – telling the story that is unforgiving and without sugarcoating anything," he relates.
The diamond industry, in response to the film, carried out full-page ad campaigns informing consumers there is only about less than one percent of the total diamonds traded that are successfully smuggled from conflict zones after the ratification in 2002 of an accord called Kimberley Process. This accord aims to certify that every diamond traded publicly is conflict-free.
"The Kimberley Process is designed to try to make the purchase of jewelry a benign act of consumerism. If you believe in buying jewelry at all – that’s a personal issue, or if you believe in the enjoyment of its beauty or whatever its purpose – that’s a personal choice. But the point is it has to be an informed choice. We are not trying to tell people to buy diamond or not to buy diamond," adds director Ed Zwick.
DiCaprio wants to make it clear he is not trying to turn himself into an activist by advancing his political agenda in movies he makes.
"I want to say this. I always have this consistent attitude about being an actor working in this film industry," he emphasizes. "I was only 16 when I did This Boy’s Life. I watched somebody like Robert De Niro work and coming from the world of television and seeing the immense amount of intensity that he put in his character was pretty much mind-blowing for me and it was something that affected me. I kind of always have the same attitude about acting in the movies that I do and maybe I have developed more tools on how to do that but the passion has always been there since my early work."
After Titanic broke world box office records, the star appeared in three successive and critically-acclaimed Martin Scorsese films: Gangs of New York, The Aviator and Oscar favorite The Departed. He also did Catch Me If You Can with Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg. While DiCaprio’s contemporaries languished in semi-obscurity, his star glowed brightly.
"Titanic for me was really a departure from things I’ve done in the past," he says. "I’ve traditionally done low-budget films. Titanic was something I really would not have tried. But I don’t regret it. It’s given me so much opportunity as an actor to do things on a different level. It put me on the driver’s seat to put me in movies that, I feel, are important."
Blood Diamond also stars Oscar winner Jennifer Connelly.