Leonardo DiCaprio is a Hollywood legend with scores of blockbuster films under his belt. Titanic, Inception, The Revenant, Django Unchained… the list goes on. Still, the actor has career regrets, and he’s now revealed the biggest one: not doing Boogie Nights.
1997’s Boogie Nights, from writer-director Paul Thomas Anderson, tells the story of a young nightclub dishwasher who becomes a porn star called Dirk Diggler in 1970s Los Angeles. It is one of Transformers star Mark Wahlberg’s most iconic roles, but it was originally intended for Leonardo DiCaprio after Anderson saw him in The Basketball Diaries. DiCaprio, who had to turn the role down because he had signed on to star in James Cameron’s Titanic, recommended his The Basketball Diaries co-star Mark Wahlberg for the role instead. The rest is history.
DiCaprio has spoken about wishing he’d been able to do both Boogie Nights and Titanic in the past. Now, in a just-published conversation between Paul Thomas Anderson and DiCaprio himself in Esquire, he called not doing Boogie Nights his biggest regret.
“I’ll say it even though you’re here: my biggest regret is not doing Boogie Nights,” DiCaprio told Anderson. “It was a profound movie of my generation. I can’t imagine anyone but Mark [Wahlberg] in it. When I finally got to see that movie, I just thought it was a masterpiece. It’s ironic that you’re the person asking that question, but it’s true.”
In a 2008 interview with GQ, DiCaprio was asked whether he would pick Boogie Nights over Titanic, could he go back and make the decision again.
“I’m not saying I would have,” he replied. “But it would have been a different direction, careerwise. I think they’re both great and wish I could have done them both.”
DiCaprio continued: “I would have been happy to do them both. And the truth is, if I’d not done Titanic, I wouldn’t be able to do the types of movies or have the career I have now, for sure. But it would have been interesting to see if I had gone the other way.”
After Titanic came out and set the box office alight, DiCaprio starred in the likes of The Beach, Gangs of New York, Catch Me If You Can, The Aviator, and many more movies. He is set to appear in One Battle After Another, written and directed by Paul Thomas Anderson, in September.
Photo by CBS via Getty Images.
Wesley is Director, News at IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at [email protected] or confidentially at [email protected].
