Leonardo DiCaprio maintained a “no eye contact” policy with crew members on the set of Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, it has been claimed.
According to the Hollywood Reporter, the Oscar winner’s demand was designed to help him maintain “a carefully crafted air of mystery” on set.
An on-set source further added: “Some crew members on Once Upon a Time were instructed to avoid making eye contact with him.”
The story, which describes DiCaprio as Hollywood’s “last movie star” due to his run of hits and avoidance of superhero movies and franchises, also reveals that he took a $5 million pay cut for the film, earning just $15 million for his services. But he also stands to make upwards of $45 million in back-end profits if the film is a hit.
Tarantino himself praised DiCaprio’s reluctance to appear in an abundance of movies per year. “He kind of stands alone today, like Al Pacino or Robert De Niro were in the Seventies, where they weren’t trying to do two movies a year,” he said. “They could do anything they wanted, and they wanted to do this. So that means this must be pretty good.”
