America’s most wanted

“He’s so unique. I suppose that youth does have something to do with it. His intentions were to go out there and to experience the world to its fullest. I think he knew, though, that it would all catch up with him, and that he was pushing it to extremes”. Leonardo Wilhelm Di Caprio is describing Frank Abagnale Jr. though he could just as easily be giving an account of himself or indeed his own tabloid-baiting exploits of recent years. Abagnale, who at 19 became the youngest ever person to grace the FBI’s ‘Ten Most Wanted’ list, is the basis for Catch Me If You Can, the second Leo movie in a month, after Scorsese’s Gangs Of New York.

A bright and breezy chase flick, Catch Me... boasts the infinitely marketable combination of Leo, director Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks, and represented a considerable change of pace from his experiences on Scorsese’s flawed masterpiece.

“It wasn’t a conscious decision to say ‘Oh now I’m going to do comedy’ – I just really liked the energy of this movie. I haven’t felt that frenetic pace in a while. Especially coming off Gangs Of New York, which took nine months in Rome, and was a two year long process.”
Though, the role requires Di Caprio to do what he does best, and turn on the charm, the actor has invested Abagnale with considerable depths.

“For me, it was a story about divorce and how it affects this young man, and how he goes on this misdirected path,” he says. “He’s had to make this real extreme decision at this young age, and he’s had to choose between his mother and his father. So this sort of primal urge to redeem himself to his father takes over. I really think that his father and the divorce is so much a part of what he does.”

In Di Caprio’s own life, divorce doesn’t seem to have been nearly so traumatic. His parents – a German legal secretary mother and an underground comic-book artist father – separated shortly after his birth in November of 1974, but have remained close, and Leo’s subsequent upbringing was a happy, if bohemian one, replete with regular house visits from the likes of comic-book legend Robert Crumb, writer Charles Bukowski and novelist Hubert Selby Jr. In keeping with the family’s artistic proclivities, young Leo began auditioning for acting roles at the age of two.

“I always wanted to be an actor. It was always a need, and everything comes from a need. I was looking for attention and acceptance.”

He got rather more than that, particularly from those in the throes of full-blown, carnal Leo-mania; a condition which seemed to afflict most of planet Earth after Di Caprio’s intial forays into the heart-throb roles provided by Baz Luhrman’s Romeo & Juliet and the monstrously successful (or just plain monstrous) Titanic.

This quantuum leap into über-stardom came as something of a surprise to many who had been quietly following Leo’s previous incarnation as an interesting and capable young actor from films such as This Boy’s Life, The Basketball Diaries and What’s Eating Gilbert Grape? One minute the lad was the industry’s best kept secret and the next saw his image gracing the streets of Beijing, right next to the pics of Mao.

Not surprisingly, this transition left Leo in need of some downtime and between Titanic and Gangs…, there’d been nothing but the misfire that was The Beach. Still, Leo seems to have managed to keep busy during his time away from the screen by becoming a permanent headline generator for the red-tops and National Enquirer sector.

As the pivotal member of the Rat Pack-inspired ensemble, the ‘Pussy Posse’, the 28-year-old – together with the decidedly dodgy investment banker Dana Giacchetto, best friend Tobey Spiderman Maguire, and current darling of the WWF masses, David Blaine – took New York, and the tabloids, by storm.

They gang partied across clubland, and when they stayed in, they famously ordered out for showgirls and starlets. Indeed, in the last six months alone, Leo’s rumoured romantic dalliances have included one-time fiance Gisele Bundchen, Cameron Diaz, Sarah Foster, Lauren Bush and maybe even one or two others. The posse though, is now more defunct than any of these members of the ‘last week’s love’ club. Blaine, who admittedly has something of a rep for being latched on to the celebrity du jour, has publicly rowed with Di Caprio, with Leo accusing him of having capitalised on their friendship. Giacchetto made off with millions of Leo and co’s dollars, and has been subsequently jailed for theft. Leonardo, accordingly, has had to get a lot more discerning about his hangers on.

“I’ve had to start to think about the people in my life, because I don’t want people who are only interested in me because of who I am,” he says.

As part of this new programme, Leonardo will be returning to work fairly quickly, with either another Scorsese movie The Aviator, based on eccentric billionaire Howard Hughes’ more youthful (and less insane) days. A leading role also awaits the actor in Baz Luhrmann’s Alexander The Great – that is if Oliver Stone doesn’t get his rival Alexander The Great project into production first.

“I just want to get back to more acting,” he smiles. “It’s a great outlet, and you actually get paid.”