On an isolated north-shore beach, Leonardo DiCaprio's hair is dripping wet, his clothes slightly soggy and his lower lip quivering. Could it be possible Jack Dawson didn't go down with the ship after all, but somehow washed ashore?
Not exactly. The 25-year-old Titanic star -- looking pretty much how we left him two years ago -- has just returned from an early-morning swim in the ocean. But this time, it's not the frigid waters of the North Atlantic that are spelling his doom. It's the air-conditioning unit in his hotel room -- inadvertently switched to "high" -- that's chilled him to the bone. Apparently not even the King of the World can prevent housekeeping from fiddling with his thermostat.
DiCaprio, who has been more or less incommunicado with the press ever since Titanic took the world by storm in 1997, has touched down in paradisiacal Maui for a few days of rest and relaxation and some select silence-breaking interviews about The Beach -- his long-awaited followup to the highest-grossing film in motion-picture history. (It opens in theatres across Canada and the United States next week.)
The actor admits the expectations have been overwhelming in the wake of Titanic. "But I really wanted to take my time and not rush into anything," he explains. "The misconception was that I was slacking off, but I needed to find a project that I connected with, that really spoke to me. Not something that somebody else told me was a brilliant story, or was going to be a brilliant movie."
As Hollywood's most sought-after actor and newest member of the elite $20-million-per-picture (U.S.) club, DiCaprio could have easily cashed in on Titanic mania and cranked out at least three more films by now. "But it's never been about the money for me," he insists. "That's not an issue for me. Not to sound portentous or anything, but I think I'm constantly experimenting with the types of movies I want to do and performances I want to give. And after Titanic, I just went into the phase of saying, 'You know what? I want to put a lot more focus into my preparation time with the movie, my involvement with the movie, my involvement with the character, and the end results.' I don't want my movies to just be a blur from one to the next, without giving the amount of attention that they need."
Truth be told, Titanic was the exception to DiCaprio's seeming rule of dark, tormented characters in less-than-commercial fare. Films like What's Eating Gilbert Grape (1993), The Basketball Diaries (1995), Total Eclipse (1995) and Romeo and Juliet (1996) demonstrated DiCaprio's range and eclectic tastes. Then came Titanic. DiCaprio conquered the world but forfeited his past. No longer just an actor anymore, DiCaprio was suddenly the world's hottest heartthrob -- a "product" for which every studio was clamouring. The media was abuzz, linking Leo to countless high-profile projects, from the adaptation of Bret Easton Ellis's controversial serial-killer novel American Psycho ("I thought the script was interesting," he says, "but ultimately it didn't say much to me") to The Godfather, Part Four ("Francis Coppola and I were in talks, but after Mario Puzo died, it became a moot point"). Ultimately, DiCaprio settled on The Beach -- which caught many off guard. Yet the project spoke volumes to DiCaprio, who saw it as a chance to get back to where he once belonged.
"I thought this was one of the more complex characters that I'd ever read," says DiCaprio, who plays an American backpacker in Thailand following a hand-drawn map to "paradise" that was scrawled by a madman. "My character really represents a lot of themes that I think are going on with my generation, of being really, truly desensitized to real emotions and real, tangible experiences because of the media, movies, television and video games. I identified with that."
Based on Alex Garland's 1996 cult novel, The Beach has been adapted -- and significantly modified -- by the team who rejuvenated British cinema with their frenetic and edgy black comedies Shallow Grave and Trainspotting. Scottish director Danny Boyle and producer Andrew Macdonald both admit that signing DiCaprio was integral to snagging a wider audience. It's why they changed the book's narrator from a Brit to a Yankee, and passed over their usual leading man -- Ewan McGregor -- in favor of DiCaprio. McGregor was quite vocal about the snub, but "we wanted the film, more than anything, to be international," says Boyle.
"Yeah, Ewan was upset," acknowledges the 43-year old director, "but we needed to make the character an American and it just didn't fit Ewan. The guy in the book is just sooo British. He's very passive, and although it's very cinematically written, it's an illusion. Because when you boil the book down to adapt it, there's actually nothing happening." Essentially, they needed some good ol' fashioned American bravado to juice up the story of paradise gone awry. The unrequited voyeur of the novel is now a tanned and buff antihero in the film, irresistible to the opposite sex.
"I think the idea of an American, back in Southeast Asia, creating havoc, is quite intriguing and irresistible," says Boyle with a sly smile. "And we've always been adamant that the films we make, even though we make them about certain subjects, should be for all around the world . . . we want to make difficult films for mainstream audiences."
"Difficult" certainly became the operative word on the set of The Beach. The four-month shoot on location in Thailand was plagued by countless obstacles, from hundreds of rabid and shrieking Leo-maniacs disrupting shooting, to fierce weather calamities, to DiCaprio being stung by jellyfish. But all that didn't compare to the uproar caused by Thai environmentalists, who fought to block filming, claiming the production was damaging the delicate ecology on the island of Phi Phi Leh.
"It was an attempt by environmentalists to raise issues, using Leo and this film to attract attention for their cause," sniffs Boyle, who claims that they had to clean up three tonnes of garbage spread across the beach before filming could commence. Their agreement with the Thai government included a fee of $125,000 and a $5-million bonded pledge to return the island to its original condition (minus the refuse), which Boyle has personally monitored.
"I was very angry, because they were telling a lot of untruths," he says. "But in retrospect, it was probably a good thing in creating an awareness. They have to learn something about looking after the environment. They don't have the money to keep up these islands. Things are just dumped everywhere and it's never cleaned up."
"Believe me," adds DiCaprio, "when we came in, that island was a wreck. We improved it to pristine condition. But it was next to impossible to counteract the charges. It was a lot of political propaganda."
And in an eerie twist of fate, DiCaprio was once again caught in a nautical disaster, this time for real as 10-foot waves capsized the boats used for filming. Boyle, DiCaprio and about 15 crew members fell into the choppy waters a few miles off the coast of Phi Phi Leh. "All the cameras and film and steel boxes were churning around us in the water," recounts Boyle. "We really thought we were going to die. But Leo is a good swimmer, and he calmed the other crew members, who were not strong swimmers. Eventually, after about 15 minutes, these boats came out and rescued us. But I'll never forget the sight of these huge, macho crew guys -- grips, gaffers -- uncontrollably sobbing once we finally reached the shore. But Leo was pretty cool through it all."
DiCaprio seems to have weathered his own pop-culture tempest with equal ease. Sure, the tabloids are full of Leo's "party posse" carousing through endless nightclubs and wild parties, amid constant rumours of his personal dalliances. But he seems to have reconciled with the relentless Leo-mania surrounding his every move. "It's a monster that you have no control over," DiCaprio shrugs. "I found out first-hand how much lying goes on in the press. I was absolutely shocked at how much people will lie. I had no idea. I wasn't prepared for that. It was a huge learning process for me after Titanic. But I did not want to become a hermit. I needed to live my own life and do whatever the hell I wanted to do . . . defying this 'fame' in a lot of ways."
DiCaprio pauses, searching for words. "You know, there is no handbook you can go out and buy on what it's like to become famous and what you do to survive it. I can't go to Barnes & Noble and get a book like that. Nobody wrote it. I had to endure it on my own, and make my own mistakes, and realize that things are going to happen that are inevitable."
"But hey," he adds with a smile, "I'm not one to sit here and be bitter or complain about the position I'm in, believe me. There's pros and cons to everything, but the opportunities that I've been given for the job that I love -- and the only thing that I know to be my one true calling -- has given me a world of opportunities that I never could have imagined."
He offers up a parallel between the false paradise of The Beach and his own meteoric rise to superstardom. "The character goes on this journey and ends up finding this Utopia that seems to be cocooned away from the normal laws of society. It seems like the answer to everything he's ever hoped for. But, eventually, he realizes that paradise in itself is an imaginary concept."