Leonardo DiCaprio & Jennifer Lawrence | Actors on Actors

Your guys' chemistry was amazing. Have you ever kissed? I got a Matchbox car commercial where I played a gangster. Why did somebody dose everyone and why would they waste drugs? You're starting? Yeah, I'd like to start because One Battle After Another is my favorite movie I've ever seen in my life. Thank you. Oh, stop. No, really. I, I'm, you're a really, really, really great actor. And this was like the greatest performance I've ever seen. Stop. And what struck me just as somebody, cause I, I know you and I thought this character was so, it's like the rawest I've ever seen you, but you were also really warm and Bob reminded me not in like personality, but I guess in like values of your dad and I know your parents were like very counterculture. Yeah. So was there something that was like built from you about Bob or like, do you think PTA just kind of handed you a really warm and amazing guy? I think, uh, it was very personal for Paul. He'd been writing it for 15, 20 years and it was very pertinent to today. Very topical, but yeah, it was, it was, you know, it was based on Vineland, but he made his own rendition of all of it. And I think the idea of this guy who was a revolutionary then trying to assimilate himself in the modern world with a daughter that he didn't connect to was something that had been permeating in his mind for a long time. But as far as like the counterculture stuff, yeah, my, my parents are different though, you know, my dad hung around with Abbie Hoffman a bit back in the day. They were definitely hippies, but these were much more hardcore revolutionaries that did much crazier stuff. But yeah, your dad was also a bomb maker. My father was a bomb maker, but I don't know. I just love the idea of picking up on this guy was just kind of essentially an extra in the beginning of the movie to take on as sort of revolutionary fire. And then you find him stuck there trying to live off the grid with no internet, no phone thinking his daughter's going to be as paranoid as he is. And then this idea of them trying to reconnect in a modern context. And he doesn't even know how to relate to his daughter or the world that he lives in. But all that was in the script and something that all, you know, put a lot of thought into it. What time is it? Uh, you know, I don't, I don't, I don't remember that part. Let's just not nitpick over the password. So it was the funniest I've ever seen you. And was that because you were, were you like aware of the comedy? Cause I think the funniest people are like an Alec Baldwin who like does it like as serious as a heart attack. And I can't do that. Like when I was doing no hard feelings, I was too like aware that it was a joke and I was like, yay, a joke's coming up and I don't think I could do that. But did you, were you like aware that you were being funny or were you just really, it was the circumstances. I mean, the fact that Paul wrote this idea that you think I'm going to be able to utilize all the skills from my past as a revolutionary, but that he's too stoned to get off the couch and he can't remember the password. And then that kind of dominates the entire story. Right. And then each time we got to these moments where maybe my character was going to do something heroic, we could throw it out the window all the way to the end. Yeah. When you fell off the roof. All the way to the final moment in the movie where we still thought maybe I was going to do something heroic. We're like, nah, nah, he doesn't do it. Yeah. Benicio also never really got his moment of like all this kind of work. And then there wasn't like a moment where he rides out in the sunset. Right. It was just kind of, he was fantastic. He was, your guy's chemistry was amazing. Have you ever kissed? He was actually doing Phoenician scheme and we said we have to wait for him. So we shut down production for three months and then he was like, I'm not, I'm not prepared for this. But he came in and knew exactly who his character was. And we changed the whole movie when he arrived. Yeah. All that stuff we did on the road because Benicio was like, no, I'm not doing this. I am doing this. This is who sensei knows this is what he's when we just kind of made up the improvised most of that stuff that we did. Wow. This isn't the end of the line, huh? Not for you. Ocean waves, ocean waves. Well, last question. I have more, but before we move on to me, do you watch playback? Depends on the movie. Did you watch playback on this? No. Oh yeah. You couldn't because of the, it was all VistaVision. Right. Almost endangered or extinct cameras. Giovanni Ribisi. Yes. Yeah. I actually told Paul about Giovanni Ribisi who makes a lot of these cameras. A lot of them are from Hitchcock's era. Last film was when I Jax and then the brutalist shot something in VistaVision. But the thing about VistaVision cameras, not only are there incredibly rare, and that's when Giovanni stepped in and said, Hey, I have two of these cameras that I put together. He, we, the projectors, there's only like four in the world. Wow. The film goes this way and it's very, you know, I think CinemaScope took it over, but yeah, there was, so it was no playback. Yeah. A lot of rollouts. A lot of rollouts. And we actually, I think only destroyed one camera. Destroyed it how? Yeah. Driving, driving. Oh man. I saw the movie in IMAX and those driving scenes were amazing. Like stomach dropping. So good. So do you think you'll have another one? Yeah. Pregnant now. Picking up twins. What happened to your hands? Oh, you should see the wall. Tell me about Die, My Love. I thought it was, I just finished it this morning because this all got decided yesterday, but it kind of reminded me of like French New Wave or Cassavetes filmmaking. And I thought immediately of Woman Under the Influence, which is one of my favorite performances and one of my favorite movies. Yeah. So why did you want to do this part? What got you into it? You were fantastic in it. Tell me more. Thanks. Martin Scorsese had read the book, book club and he was like, you should be in this movie or you should make this into a movie and star in it. And then when I was reading it, I really couldn't understand how it would be a movie cause it's like all her inner dialogue. I got the emotion of it. Like I felt like the author Ariana Horwitz was able to like describe the indescribable like brave depression and like an identity crisis, but like really poetically like being lost in a forest and just like these visuals and these metaphors that I had just never thought of like the human condition in that way. But I couldn't like crack how to make it a movie. And I didn't want to like go back to Marty and be like, I don't got to try someone else. Well, it's interesting because it, okay. So once I realized that it's poetry, you know, it's not like a literal story. Then it clicked that it's Lynne Ramsey cause she's a poet. And what stuff was in the book? Was there stuff in the book that wasn't in the movie or is it pretty much? No, she changed a lot. She changed a lot. She made the couple be new to town, which in the book they're not. And I think that adds a huge element to my characters, depression. And I think also the kind of pacing like a tiger in a cage, you know, just like this, I think it added a lot more of like the isolation that I think a lot of new parents have. Cause like, what is my life now without a community, you know, just being really lost at the beginning. Both of our characters kind of stick out like sore thumbs cause we're like from a big city and we're in this small town. And then as the movie progresses, I start to like blend in. And then that was my way of like finding where I was in the day, like where, like where she was mentally. Like I'd be like, Oh, the pink cardigan. Okay. She's a lot of the tension for me was that baby. Yeah. You know, I know that you think of the tension in a film like this. You're like, okay, what's going to happen to this child? I know. Because she's unraveled. Yeah. And capable of anything. Yeah. That's what got me on edge. I know. I really loved seeing you be a dad after another. I like, I'm so sad that you don't have a teenage daughter. You look great with one. We changed a lot in the book. You know, the child is not well taken care of. And Rob and I are both parents. Like Rob had like a newborn. And we just like, we're not capable of, I think even playing characters like that and it changed. And I think that ended up being for the better because postpartum, I think we've only been talking about it really recently. Right. And so when we do talk about it, the only understanding of it like is like a very simplistic, like you don't connect with your child and you don't like your child. Right. When really that's like one version of it. You know, another version of it is your marriage starts to erode because your dynamic is completely different. We dealt with a lot of that with Teyana's character too in the movie. Yeah. Which was kind of something I didn't, wasn't really, I guess it was kind of hinted at in the script that this idea of me loving the baby more than her, her being jealous of the baby and then all these secret conversations. But it was just a little blip in the movie. Yeah. Well, I can't, I imagine how much that would happen for her specifically because she was doing something so important. And then when you have a baby, it's hard to not just feel like an animal. Right. And you're just like, I'm a useless cow, but just, you know, I used to have a life. I used to do important things. Right. And I mean for her, right. She was doing like, and then she almost blames me for being the paternal one in a weird way. And you'll never understand what I get it. I'm on Tanya's side. I'm curious about something. I was going to ask you a question. Our work aside. Okay. No, but I mean, we're both, you know, both started out very young. How old were you when you started out auditioning? 14 in Kentucky. No, New York. I'm in New York. Yeah. 14, 14. I was 12. Wow. Yeah. And you did a lot of commercials, TV. Yeah. And we were both on sitcoms. Yes. What was your sitcom again? Well, yours was growing pains, which I watched every day after school. Um, and mine was the billing ball show, which I don't think anybody has ever seen except me and my parents. How long were you on it? Two years, two years. And then as soon as I wrapped winter's bone and then the show got canceled, it worked perfectly. I did one year of growing pains. Then I got this boy's life, which was like my first starring role. And they were so incredibly awesome to me because I think that we were going to do another year and late great Alan Thicke and all of them got together and like let the kid go do this. Let him go. It was really an amazing moment. They're not normally nice like that. And what was your first commercial? Um, I did an MTV promo for my super sweet 16 show. I was like on a Shay's lounge, like, and then they like dropped me. But were you in the show? Super sweet 16? No. I don't have money. What is a promo? What does that mean? A promo is like, it's like a, it's like a commercial for the show. Still don't get it. Okay. I was playing a rich girl having a over the top birthday. I was acting like I had money. Mine was, you didn't grow up rich, but you got a sitcom at 12. Yeah. I mean, I think a lot of my propulsion to want to act was to get out of my neighborhood. Like that. You could do that for work. Right. My stepbrother did a lot of commercials. I was like, wait a minute. You get paid to do that. Yeah. I'm going to get out. I got to get out of this place. Yes. So I was the stage mom, right? I was pushing my parents to take me on auditions. I'm like, you know, my school is this far away. When you pick me up, we can stop at a couple auditions on the way home, get me out there. So I, and then I, like, like I said, my stepbrother, he was, he was an actor did an episode of battle star Galactica and some television. And I was like, if anything is going to be my college fund to get me money, to try to have some sort of career in something. And then I didn't book anything for all. I got a matchbox car commercial where I played a gangster slick back hair. Wow. Like I had a briefcase and I opened it up. Did you go to the audition looking like a gangster? Yes. I slicked back my hair leather jacket on it. And then I got a lot of Mickey's safety club. Uh, there were called afterschool special kind of things where you teach kids not to do drugs and all that. And the dangers of drugs. It was kind of like that from that era. And then like I think my first television show was in the outsiders. There's my whole filmography. Wow. That's my whole, that's my whole, which brings me to one of my questions. PTA was your white whale for a while after boogie nights. Now you've just worked with him. Who's your white whale now? I don't know. Really. I mean, there's a lot of great directors out there. Damien Chazelle's very talented. Michael Mann's amazing. I've always wanted to work with him. There's so many, I don't really have one specifically if I'm being honest. Paul for me was always somebody who I kind of felt generationally was somebody that I really looked up to. He almost did boogie nights together. And then I got to watch his entire career progress over the last 25 years and see this incredible visionary and just always wanted to do something with them. Did you pass on boogie night? It was, it was a hybrid of that. Like there was titanic and then there was boogie nights and they kind of overlapped. Maybe it could have worked out. Have you rewatched titanic? No. Oh, you should. I haven't seen it. I bet you could. I bet you could like watch it as a movie now. And it's so good. I don't really watch. Maybe I do. Some movies I've watched. You watch your old, your movies? No, I've never made something like titanic, but if I did, I would, I would watch it. But I mean, do you put, when was the last time you did that? Um, when I was really drunk, I put on American hustle and then my assistant went to download something. But did you do it alone or were you showing some? Showing people? Oh my God. No, I was drunk and I was like, I wonder if I'm good at acting and I put on American hustle and I don't remember what the, what the answer was. That is funny. I'm going to have them cut that out. That is for sure. I wanted to ask about David O. Russell and what the first film was like. American hustle was like silver linings and what you feel like he brought out in you in a lot of these roles. I mean, I think you've talked about it, like push and pull with him and, and I mean, I want to help you as an actor. Yeah. He taught me how to act. Really. I want to be sensitive. That's hard to believe other actors who've worked with him cause I know he's tough, you know, and he can be really, really hard on people. For me, I don't know if it was cause I like grew up doing sports. And so I just felt like he was just like a stern coach, you know, it was like, do it louder, do it more quiet. That was bullshit. Do it again. That was bad. Do it better. Like, it was just very like straightforward to me. And I think I was young enough that I didn't have anything to, it was normal. Like to me, cause I was like 21 when I did silver linings playbook, it just felt really alive. I never felt like he was like yelling at me. But anyway, I feel like when I say he taught me how to act, I feel like because I never did like lessons or anything like that, I think I would have really easily fallen into, I don't know, something. And he, I mean, you know how I'm like never like prepared and I would always feel bad about that. But he was kind of like, he taught me that like that was like staying loose, you know, and that that's okay. And I think if I wasn't like aware that sometimes there's, sometimes there's a need to like prepare and then sometimes there is the need to like, to not, and to stay loose. And I'm happy. You kind of like the process of somebody calling out direction like that. Yeah, we do. Do you, you know, I think it does help sometimes. Yeah. Actually. But you show up like you're already like you, you, you're like making a movie. But the idea of somebody, I mean, yeah, I'm trying to think. Yeah. Most cause most of the times it's the director coming up to you in an intimate conversation like that. Yeah. And I really don't like being tiptoed around. Like I'm an emotional landmine. I hate that. Just going to leave it. Nice. Pissed on the floor too. For this movie. Did you have that dynamic too? For this movie, she was really hands-off by the time we started shooting. She kind of like builds the world and then steps back and like watches and is very observational. But I think like our conversations were, it was like more of a universal conversation than like a coming up in between. And a lot of it was improvised obviously. Right. Was that written in the script? All the stuff that you did in that film? No. I mean for the like pacing around the house and stuff, she would just kind of set up a camera and tell me that. Exist. Yeah. I think she improvised a lot. Like us crawling in the grass. That was written as like us like flipping burgers when he proposes to me. Didn't you say that was the first day of filming or something? No. The first day was the naked fighting like tigers. And Rob and I didn't even know each other that well. We like met a couple of times. Wow. I think it was better that way. Like threw you into the gauntlet. You kind of like that. Yeah. Yeah. I think so. Yeah. Have you ever done nudity? Full? Yes. Maybe I have. I did a film which you never would have seen called total eclipse about Arthur Rimbaud, French poet. And I was 17 or 18. I was nude in that. And I think I was partially nude in aviator. You should rewatch it. I was trying to get the rendezvous point for my daughter, Willa. If you can't answer, what time is it? I cannot give you the rendezvous point. I do just want to hear more about like how Bob did it start. Did it like, I guess chicken or the egg, but like he's fried his brains on drugs. He can't remember the password. So it's kind of like this friend, you're, you're kind of playing Bob in a moment where he's never that he's never existed him before. You know, he like started the movement cause he was like horny for her. And then it felt like he believed in a cause too. I feel like that grew. No, I'm wrong. I'm not. Well, the mere fact that he's, well, maybe, yeah, actually, maybe that's what it seems like when you watch it. Like he's running up with the wheelbarrow and he's just, I think it started about her and then that's interesting. And then it, no, that's not the way we started out. He was kind of based on the weather underground and a lot of this, this book that I read days of, of rage. And there was a specific bomb maker in there and they're kind of in the background as you know, the more sort of curtain or like forceful revolutionaries are in the foreground. And it had a lot to do with what his life was like. But yeah, I felt like he was definitely a revolutionary from the start and trying to fit in. Yeah. Yeah. I think that the creative part of my brain and my, the political part of my brain are intrinsically linked. Like I keep finding like every time I come up with like a movie or like I'm at it's, it's more often than not political. I think it's cause that's how I'm like digesting the world. Are you like that? No, no, no. But this, but this, this was an interesting one because he wrote this 15 years ago and it kind of feels very topical. Totally. And you know, as we know, don't look up together. It's very difficult to say something about the world we live in and it has to have an element of irony or comedy to it. Otherwise people, they're not allowed in, you know what I mean? It feels like, Oh, I'm watching these people's vocation and they, you know, do I relate to them? And the messiness of the comedy I think is kind of, you know, there's all those political films of the seventies, parallax view three days of the condor, all the president's men. And they were taken very seriously. But nowadays it feels like we're, there's such polarity and such extremism that if you pick a side, you're alienating, you know? Yeah, it's true. Right. Yeah. So this, I think Paul delicate balance, and I think he did an amazing job with this movie and, and, and saying something. I agree. I agree. It reminded me of not the movie, but the actual revolutionary Napoleon. Well, the French 75, right? Yeah. 75. What are your good and bad habits as an actor? And can I answer for you? That'd be much better. Bad habits. I think I shoot out a lot of ideas. Sometimes unnecessarily. Well, it's kind of like a shotgun spray of anything that comes to mind. And a lot of that may waste time for the focus of what we already know. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. But that sounds helpful. Cause if it's not useful, then you just move on. But if it is useful, that's like really important. Well, sometimes maybe it steers away from what is obvious. You know what I mean? But yeah, it still sounds like a good thing to me. Does it steering away from what is, well, well, you know, but, but sometimes it's unnecessary. Like, you know, we know what the scene's about. And I just keep coming up with this stuff that may seem unnecessary. That's all. Well, a broken clock is right twice a day. So I think there are inevitably going to be moments where it's not necessary, but I don't think that that means the whole process is bad. So maybe it's a, I think it's a good, maybe it's a good and bad thing. I answered both in one. Great. Now I'm going to throw that back on you. My bad habit is that I am so good at letting go at the end of the day that I don't think about the next day. Right. And then it's like a mad scramble and the hair and makeup trailer to like, if it's like a bigger scene than I was expecting, cause normally it's like you get sides and it's like you have two lines in the day and then it's like a mad scramble to try to memorize. And then I'm not doing my best cause I'm trying to remember what the lines are instead of just knowing the lines and then going elsewhere. So your ability to shut off in between is great cause for my life, I imagine on this movie it was very emotional what you were doing. So that when you went home, you were able to shut, how long was the shoot? Two and a half months. I think maybe it wasn't, maybe it was one month, six weeks. I don't know. Yeah, that is a good quality. Yeah. It's good until it makes you not go crazy. And it makes me not go crazy. But the next morning is hell. I mean with silver linings, I had a scene where I'm just like yelling nothing but sports stats to Bob DeNiro. And it's obviously really hard to memorize cause it's not like there's a train of thought to follow. It's just numbers and sports, which I don't care about. And you know, I didn't know that I had to do that until a day of, and it's Robert DeNiro and I'm like, I'm not going to ******* waste Robert DeNiro's time. And so that's an example of it was a really, really bad thing to do. But it turned out great. Well, I ended up, I nailed it on the first take and then fucked up every single other take until we finally moved on. That's a tough one, isn't it? When you cannot, I've had those moments too. I remember on the aviator, I had to say stuff about this Bruce Goose and I could not, I could literally couldn't say the words. Yeah. And it's humiliating. And it's like going to school with your underwear on a horrible feeling. Well, you and I are both obsessive about sleep. Like when we're working, like counting the hours. Yeah. And when I was doing Red Sparrow, I took an Adderall instead of a sleeping pill and then I didn't sleep all night and I was like taking hot showers, like panic. Cause like, I can't, I can't, I'm not like somebody who can function without sleep. And then I had to say Senate armed services committee and a Russian accent. And that sucked. That's like 11 benevolent elephants. Senate arms, Senate arms. Now that you're saying it now, I can't. Senate arms. Oh my God. I've remembered it for 10 years. Senate armed service. What did you just say? I have no idea. Now it's, now it's gone. And it's gone. Now I have more longterm memory, I guess, uh, to make room for. Um, I also once took an Ambien in the morning before thinking it was something else. Those are key screw ups. Yeah. Wow. And it was a dance scene with Philip Seymour Hoffman on the second Hunger Games movie. And I was like hallucinating. It almost shuts off a certain part of your brain. Well certainly the memorizational part of your brain. And you had to say lines with that. Yeah. And Elizabeth Banks got really annoyed with me because maybe she didn't know that I was on an Ambien, but I kept asking the director, wait, and what does this mean? Wait. And what does this mean? And what does that mean? And she just like threw her side. So I was just like, fine, let's just keep talking about it. Have you ever, well, on Titanic everybody got dosed with peyote. I mean, you weren't, or PCP, you weren't there. Yeah. I wasn't there. I just heard the story thirdhand. I wasn't there. Yeah. That was the modern day stuff. I think people started, there was like a conga line that formed and people were dancing. Well, and a lot of people went to the hospital. Yeah. Well they thought that it was a neurotoxin from the clam chowder. Why did somebody dose everyone and why would they waste drugs? It's a two-parter. I wasn't there. I have a question. Yes. Was there one note that PTA gave you that became like Bob to you? And does that happen to you on every movie? Is that like some, cause that for me happens, I hear like one note and then I'm like that, that it's almost like getting in an accent and saying the same line. I think that back to what you said earlier, like the sort of Bohemian counterculture stuff that I grew up with with my father, my father's, you know, anti-Vietnam, all that, the kind of cast of characters that I grew up with was very connected to that, those ideals of Bob. And I think there was a moment with him where we were about to start filming and I was still trying to create somebody else. And he was, he was, he was very much like, you know, make this much more personal to the guys that you knew growing up and the people that you saw and, and don't try to do something that is out of the box with this one, you know, don't make him from somewhere else. This is a California kind of guy. Yeah. And then of course the big Lebowski came into my mindset, the dude and modern day dude would look like maybe, maybe planted bombs as well. And then as soon as we got to Northern California really, and I, and I understood what this idea of hip necks were, which were these kinds of hippies that were, you know, also don't tread on me, get off my property, anti-government, you know, might have a shotgun in their backyard ready to get people, you know, out of their face that, that Northern California thing. And Paul is amazing with like location scouting. He did it for I think a year. He did Northern California, Borrego Springs with all the amazing road sequences that chase sequence, El Paso and everywhere. We went all sort of the local community that we worked with really helped with shaping the whole movie and the narrative. A lot of the people we worked with in the movie are non-actors. So he just bring people in that really had those locations. Well, we're about to work with each other. Yeah. Is there anything that I need to like, I should absolutely know about Martin Scorsese before we start? It's a great thing. And he's going to give you a lot of film references, which is amazing because they usually come in the form of a, of a DVD. And if you don't have a DVD player, get a DVD player. I'm going to kill myself. So, but he'll have screenings sometimes for just one sequence in the movie. Like if he can't, he doesn't have a hard time articulating anything, but if there's something that he wants you to capture from an old film, the pacing of something might have a screening of a whole film just for a specific scene that he wants to try to capture. You know, we might see some Japanese ghost films for reference just to get the tone of it. You're going to have an amazing time. Wow. Yeah. Are you really excited to work with me again? Yes, I am. Are you really excited to work with Marty for the first time? Who is it? I can't believe that. Okay, Leo. Well, goodbye.