There once was a poster on the back of a bedroom door, featuring several photos of one young actor in many different movies. The girl who slept in that room would sometimes – but only sometimes, she wants to make clear – kiss the actor’s image before falling asleep. The actor? Leonardo DiCaprio. The girl? Well, it was me. And if I still had that poster, I would kiss it still. Probably. I love Leo.
Can we talk about his fierce, extravagant talent? I remember watching him in What’s Eating Gilbert Grape (for which he earned his first Oscar nomination, aged 19) and being moved. By the time I saw him in Romeo + Juliet, I was in love. Leo was, in the language of Just 17, a total babe. He was pretty, like a girl, with the sweetest smile, and a voice of perfect pitch. His face conjured up old-fashioned terms like “dreamboat”. I watched Titanic on VHS until it wore out, and I cried every time. But this wasn’t simply adolescence in action: DiCaprio, now 40, still has that star quality, matched by flawless acting chops.
Post-heartthrob Leo is magnetic, a bare lightbulb of brilliance that often outshines similarly talented performers. There he is in Catch Me If You Can, charming and never not believable as a conman. In The Departed, killing it as a desperate cop. In The Wolf Of Wall Street, deeply amoral but somehow relatable. As we get older, I find Leo ever more intriguing to watch. His lack of Oscars (five nominations and counting) may be something of a joke now, but his body of work is impressive, as is his environmentalism. And he’s still hot, even with that straggly man bun. Get me that poster. I’ll kiss it. Right now.
