Leonardo DiCaprio reveals secrets behind iconic quaaludes scene in Wolf of Wall Street
Leonardo DiCaprio has spoken about the secret behind the iconic Wolf of Wall Street quaaludes scene in a new appearance on the New Heights podcast.
DiCaprio, appearing alongside Benecio Del Toro on the podcast run by Travis and Jason Kelce, was promoting his newest film One Battle After Another.
The movie, starring the pair alongside Regina Hall, Sean Penn, and Chase Infiniti, has received widespread plaudits, with calls for it to win numerous Oscars and a score of 98% on Rotten Tomatoes.
In his shock appearance on the Kelce brother podcast, the actor also spoke about what many would argue is DiCaprio’s most iconic roles.
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Whilst the LA born actor has starred in numerous beloved films such as Titanic, The Departed, The Revenant, Inception, and Shutter Island, many still know him best for his role as Jordan Belfort in The Wolf of Wall Street.
The film is rife with debauchery, with Belfort engaging in adultery, and snorting about every drug under the sun.
The most extreme of these is a scene in which him and Jonah Hill’s Donnie Azoff take expired ‘quaaludes’.
This is a drug that was widely proscribed in the 1960s and 70s, but went essentially extinct in the west after being banned in the US in 1984.
The pair’s subsequent drug induced stint is bizarre, and one of the most iconic scenes in the film.
In his newest film, DiCaprio’s character is tased, leading Jason Kelce to ask: “Is it harder to act like you’ve been tased or that you’re high on quaaludes?”
DiCaprio said of the scene: “I gotta say about that quaalude sequence, I didn’t know when I was shooting it but we were there for three or four days.
“I thought it was a couple shots and [Martin Scorsese] had 50 shots of me crawling around, up and down the stairs, falling, getting in the car.”
Many probably think that scenes such as this are simple to shoot, as they take up just a short portion of a movie, so this peak behind the curtain to find out it took three or four days is fascinating.
Speaking to the New York Post, the real-life Jordan Belfort revealed that he had to teach DiCaprio how to act like you had taken the long-banned drug.
He said: “I showed him what it looks and feels like when you are high on quaaludes.
“I... started crawling around. We were both on the floor, drooling.
“His father walked into the room and asked us what the f**k we were doing.”
This was not the only shocking reveal of the episode, with DiCaprio stating that as a child actor his first agent had told him his name was ‘too ethnic’.
He said he was then told his new name would be ‘Lenny Williams’ instead and, thankfully, that didn’t quite stick.
Topics: Leonardo DiCaprio, Travis Kelce, TV and Film, Film, Celebrity, Drugs
Michael Slavin