Leo DiCaprio Preps Jennifer Lawrence For Working With Scorsese

After heading up the all-star cast of 2021's Don't Look Up, Leonardo DiCaprio and Jennifer Lawrence got back together for Variety's Actors on Actors as they promote their latest Oscar Hopefuls, but the two will also re-team in an upcoming movie called What Happens at Night. And yeah, their director will be the one and only Martin Scorsese. Now this will be the seventh time that Martin's directed Leo, but it will be the first time that he's directed Jennifer. 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. Oh, do I have to watch all of them? Which is amazing because they usually come in the form of a DVD, and if you don't have a DVD player, get a DVD player. Oh my god, I'm going to kill myself. Yeah, this film history lesson was something that Leo praised in a recent sit-down with Martin for Time Magazine. Marty is the ultimate cinephile, so you get these incredible screenings beforehand. I remember even in the Aviator watching Mystery of the Wax Museum. The Wax Museum, yeah, the original two-color one. Just to be able to accomplish a singular dinner scene at Catherine Hepburn's house, the overlapping dialogue. Luddy built a birdhouse once. You remember that, dear? Yes, well, a mere trifle, darling. Oh, I remember the painting. The painting, it's called May 18 or something. Anyway, it's vastly overrated. All the Spaniards are. Nonsense, Picasso is sacred. I'm a urologist. It was quite aesthetic. Pretty much with every film, you get a cinema education, and all that stuff is so highly infused into the performance and the look of the film, and it really shapes the tone of all of it. Yeah, so they are set to begin filming in February, and it's based on a ghost story novel. So yeah, Leo and Jennifer might have some assigned, you know, viewing homework as they 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, he might have a screening of a whole film just for a specific scene that he wants to try to capture. Look, I have no doubt that Jennifer is insanely excited to work with Martin Scorsese. I'm sure it's going to be an amazing experience, but even when Leo is explaining it to her, she's staring off at something else. I'm not going to doubt Martin Scorsese's process like he's a genius. It does sound a little bit excessive to me. Like the overlapping dialogue in the scene in The Aviator lasts for about 20 seconds. And I mean, we've seen those scenes in dozens, if not hundreds of movies and TV shows. We are. It's a family dinner scene and everyone's talking over each other. I don't think you need to screen a two-hour movie for Leo, Cate Blanchett, Francis Conroy, and the rest of the actors in that scene to grasp that you want them to talk over each other. And why screen the whole movie? I mean, yeah, they don't need the plot of the movie or the context of that scene. You just want them to see the overlapping dialogue. So just show them that two-minute scene. Yeah, it seems a little bit excessive. 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. And I get offering a few film references, you know, for an actor to check out, to get the overall tone or style of a piece. They very much see that with a ghost story because, yeah, the tone of a ghost story, you know, is a huge range. So I can get, yeah, offering a few, you know, here's a couple DVDs if you want to watch for reference. But it seems a little bit, I don't know, kind of imposing to, you know, schedule screening. Like, you're going to come at this time and watch this movie so you can see this scene. Like, it all seems a bit excessive to me. Look, yeah, whatever. As long as he has his way and, like, Leo loves it. Leo's a cinephile too, so I get why he loves doing it. I can't wait for this next film that we're going to do together to talk about the movies that you're going to be influenced by. Have fun, Gila. What are your thoughts? Okay, Leo. Well, goodbye.