Collin County Living Well Magazine May/June 2019 | Page 28

From previous page
That special something was readily ap-
parent in 1994 when DiCaprio portrayed
Arnie Grape, a child with learning difficulties in the
film What’s Eating Gilbert Grape, which earned him
his first Oscar nomination (best supporting actor).
He’s since gone on to give groundbreaking performances
that have one thing in common, they’re all unequivocally
different: charming Jack Dawson (Titanic), prevaricator
Frank Abagnale Jr. (Catch Me If You Can), eccentric
Howard Hughes (The Aviator), fraudster Jordan Bel-
fort (The Wolf of Wall Street)––just to name a few.
His riveting role as Hugh Glass, a man dominating
nature, in Revenant may have scored DiCaprio his first
Oscar, but it also provided him an opportunity to talk
about his other passion: environmentalism. It’s an is-
sue dear to DiCaprio’s heart. Not only has he given
his time and resources to environmental causes, he
also devoted his Oscar winning speech to the topic.
He founded the Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation (LDF)
in 1998 to bring attention to the plight of our plan-
et. According to the foundation’s website, “LDF has
been on a mission to protect the Earth’s last wild
places, implementing solutions that restore balance
to threatened ecosystems, and ensure the long-term
health and wellbeing of all its inhabitants.” Since its
inception, the foundation has donated more than $15
million to the protection of species including tigers in
Asia, elephants in Africa, and sharks in California.
“Historically, we always look back at cultures that have
been self-destructive and we talk about the ignorant way
they treated the natural world, and we pass judgment on
them,” explained DiCaprio to writer Dotson Rader. “But
the truth is that what we’re now doing to the natural world
is thousand times more destructive than it’s ever been be-
fore. We’re literally going through an extinction right now.
We’re changing our climates irreparably, and climate
change lasts tens of thousands, if not millions, of years.
We don’t seem to be learning lessons from the past.”
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Leonardo as Jordan Belford in The Wolf of Wall Street (2013)
who takes some rather bland people and turns them into one of
the biggest scams that the FBI ever saw.
“Leo is an enigma,” said his Revenant
co-star Tom Hardy during press for the
film that would earn DiCaprio his first
Academy Award after four previous un-
successful nominations. “There’s some-
thing kind of magic about him.”
DiCaprio is so passionate about the subject that he also
produced a documentary, Before the Flood, presented
by National Geographic, where he served as a United
Nations Messenger of Peace, traveling to five continents
and the Arctic to witness climate change firsthand.
Leonardo and Kate Winslet as a pair back in 1997, in Titanic.
Now, 20 years later, their friendship is still one of the strongest in
Hollywood.
COLLIN COUNTY Living Well Magazine | MAY/JUNE 2019