Fame has its negative consequences and they affected the actor so much that he thought about not continuing with his work in front of the cameras.
Leonardo DiCaprio's undisputed stardom came when he played the handsome Jack Dawson in Titanic (1997), but his fame played a double-edged sword for him. So much so that, after that iconic role, he thought about taking a long break from acting.
A lot has changed in DiCaprio's life since he first boarded James Cameron's Titanic. He has gone from being a Hollywood heartthrob to becoming one of the most respected veteran actors in the film industry. But as always happens with age, he has also undergone a big physical change over the years. Cameron himself noticed those changes that both DiCaprio and Kate Winslet experienced. This made his Titanic movie feel like a time capsule of sorts.
"Leo has become so much more rugged while Kate's beauty has evolved in such a big, shocking way. The way I relate to her is that she's a snapshot in time and her characters Jack and Rose almost exist as characters." independent of who Kate and Leo are," Cameron once said in an interview with Culture.
Because of how young DiCaprio was at the time, the actor now has a hard time taking his past self seriously.
"When I watch the film now, they look like babies. Not long ago I sat down with Leo in Sydney and showed him 18 minutes that we had converted. He couldn't stop laughing at himself like some kind of child," Cameron recalls.
DiCaprio was already an established actor when Titanic arrived, he had films like What's Eating Gilbert Grape? by Swedish director Lasse Hallström and Romeo + Juliet by Baz Luhrmann. He may have already been headed toward heartthrob status, but Titanic cemented the issue.
But my name wasn't me anymore. I was kind of a thing." Kate felt it too. But much of the attention was on me because of the teenage girls who repeatedly went to see the movie. I had blonde hair and I was Jack Dawson, this heroic figure," DiCaprio said in a 2010 interview with Esquire.
"In the beginning, I despised being typecast as a heartthrob, as if that were the sole expectation of me. It almost made me contemplate taking a break from acting because the spotlight was fixated on a path I didn't envision for my career," he once remarked.
This experience also dissuaded DiCaprio from venturing into other film genres that might have resembled Titanic too closely.
"I steered clear of romantic films or anything that exploited my image or looks. I also had to be more discerning about my choice of friends. There was a phase when I lived a flamboyant life, and eventually, that became wearisome," he further reflects.
