Leonardo DiCaprio admits he can’t believe that Jordan Belfort is still alive after learning of his antics while portraying him in The Wolf of Wall Street.
Having starred as the disgraced stockbroker in the hit 2013 film, DiCaprio couldn’t believe that Belfort had survived his excessive lifestyle and constant drug taking.
While the actor insisted the movie was a ‘cautionary tale’, he admitted to feeling like a ’rockstar’ during some scenes.
The 2013 film was based on Belfort’s best-selling autobiography and tells the story of how the former stockbroker conned millions out of investors to pay for his hedonistic life of drugs and sex.
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Despite DiCaprio and Martin Scorsese wanting to adapt the book, it took nearly six years for the film to be made - allowing the Titanic actor to build a friendship with the former financer.
In an interview for Bloomberg, the 48-year-old even admitted he’d ‘appreciated’ how honest Belfort had been about the book’s more X-rated moments.
“He was incredibly candid and honest with me,” DiCaprio explained, adding: “A lot of time we would talk about section in the book and he’d say not only was it that bad, I was ten times worse.”
This included the disgraced stockbroker acting out the infamous quaaludes high scene, as he crawled on the floor in front of the A-Lister.
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Even with the insane amount of research he did, DiCaprio admits he doesn’t know how Belfort is still alive.
The actor joked: “I read this book and couldn’t believe that this man led this lifestyle and still survived.”
While the Don’t Look Up star insists that the book and film are a ‘cautionary tale’ about greed, he confessed to getting caught in the story.
Though he spent nearly six years preparing for the iconic role, DiCaprio said that it wasn’t until he got on stage that the dramatic speech began to take on ‘life of its own'.
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“I felt closer to Jordan [Belfort] to what must have felt during that time period, where he almost created a cult for himself,” he admitted during the Bloomberg interview.
As he shouted at the cast, the actor said he felt like ‘Bono or some rockstar’ even though he knew the actors were paid to applaud him every single time.
He continued: “It almost became this Braveheart-like speech or cry for battle, even though I was telling them to go screw over as many people as possible.”
Topics: Leonardo DiCaprio, Celebrity, TV and Film, Money
Katherine Sidnell