Leonardo DiCaprio's Career Shake-Up

11 March 2010

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When Leonardo DiCaprio burst onto the scene, mainly thanks to a tine movie called Titanic, it looked like he was just going to be another actor who was just the latest teenage pin-up.

Despite roles in This Boy's Life, What's Eating Gilbert Grape, The Basketball Diaries and The Quick and the Dead, which saw him work with the likes of Robert De Niro, Russell Crowe and Gene Hackman it wasn't until that film in 1997 which made his acting career take off.

Yes of course I'm talking about Titanic, which saw him work with Kate Winslet for the very first time, and the pair of them shot to superstardom and Leo Mania seemed to sweep the globe.

Roles in The Man in the Iron Mask and The Beach followed and his career looked set to go down the pretty boy path.

And just when it looked like DiCaprio was going to have a predictable and restricted career he shocked everyone...

Taking control  he teamed up with Martin Scorsese to become a serious and highly respected acting heavyweight that has placed him at the top of the tree.

And this week he is back on the big screen in another Martin Scorsese project, their fourth movie together, in the form of Shutter Island, an adaptation of the Dennis Lehane novel.

It was 2002 that brought about the change in direction for the actor with his role as Amsterdam Vallon in Gangs of New York in 2002, his first collaboration with Martin Scorsese saw him change all of that.

The film was a critical and commercial success and was nominated for ten Academy Awards including Best Picture, but there was no nomination for DiCaprio's performance.

But one of cinema's most successful partnerships had begun as Scorsese seemed to have found his new muse in the form of DiCaprio.

The Aviator followed in 2004 and with it came a whole host of awards and nominations for his performance as Howard Hughes.

He scooped the Golden Globes for Best Actor in a Motion Picture Drama and he went on to be nominated at the Oscars, Baftas and Screen Actors Guild Awards as DiCaprio staked a claim as a serious actor, leaving his pretty boy days behind him.

Edward Zwick's action/adventure film Blood Diamond was next set during the Sierra Leone Civil War of the 1990s and showing a country torn apart by the struggle between government soldiers and rebel forces.

Once again he found himself in contention for the Best Actor Oscar, losing out to Forest Whitaker. But that same year another performance in The Departed was also gaining awards momentum finding both his performances nominated for Best Actor at the Golden Globes.

The Departed marked DiCaprio's third collaboration with Scorsese and the film went on to scoop Best Picture and, at long last, a Best Director gong for Scorsese.

A remake of Infernal Affairs, The Departed remains one of the best crime/cop movies of recent years with great performances from the stellar cast, which also included Matt Damon, Jack Nicholson and Mark Wahlberg.

It was January 2009 that we last saw the actor on the big screen as he reunited with Kate Winslet for the Sam Mendes directed Revolutionary Road.

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