Leonardo DiCaprio, famous for his roles in the Titanic, Inception, The Wolf of Wall Street, the Great Gatsby and a plethora of others, FINALLY got what he deserved (no pun intended!). On the 28th of February 2016, this Serbian-speaking acting veteran won the elusive Oscar at the 88th Academy Awards in Los Angeles.
DiCaprio has previously been nominated four times (even though we all know he deserved more than four nominations) for his leading roles in The Aviator, Blood Diamond and The Wolf of Wall Street as well as for Best Supporting Actor in What’s Eating Gilbert Grape, and every single person on the planet agreed that the Academy had robbed Leo of the Oscar one too many times. People from all over the world were preparing for a revolt should Leo be denied his prize once more.
However, after going home empty-handed four times, Leonardo DiCaprio won his very first Best Actor Academy Award for his portrayal of a betrayed 19th-century frontiersman seeking revenge in Alejandro González Iñárritu’s survival drama The Revenant.
Leonardo DiCaprio played Hugh Glass – a pioneer and fur-trapper who battled his way through the wilderness and the bitter cold after being left for dead. He was very committed to the role, enduring a grueling filming process and supposedly even sleeping in animal carcasses and eating raw bison liver.
This triumph crowns his other 45 awards from 161 nominations, including those at the BAFTAS, the Critics’ Choice Awards, the Golden Globes, and the Screen Actors Guild Awards. And all he had to do was fight a ferocious grizzly bear.
Now, you must be wondering about the ‘‘Serbian-speaking Leonardo DiCaprio’’ bit from the beginning of this text? Even though this may have perhaps been a bit exaggerated for humour’s sake, it really did happen!
In the movie The Beach (2000), DiCaprio was given a task to say one sentence in Serbian language by Sonja (played by a Serbian actress Zelda Tinska). The challenge was to say ‘‘Sutra ću putovati mnogo milja biciklom.’’ which is Serbian for ‘‘Tomorrow I will travel many miles on a bicycle’’.
How he did, you can judge for yourselves:
We think he did pretty close to flawless. And regardless of your final verdict on Leo’s Serbian, we can all agree that this is a reason more for Serbia to love Leonardo!
This, as a matter of fact, isn’t Leo’s only link to Serbia. Apparently, he has been interested to star in a movie about the adventures of an infamous Serbian band of thieves called the ‘‘Pink Panther gang’’.
These real-life Serbian criminals, numbering at about 200 members, are known for never using violent methods in their work but being extremely successful. They’ve carried out over 270 heists and made off with about 300 million euros in stolen goods.
According to Serbian press, DiCaprio has sent his screenwriter to Belgrade to meet with Interpol officials and a Radio Belgrade host Dragan Ilić, and gather all the necessary information. This, however, was in 2011 and the movie hasn’t yet come into realisation, but sure we hope it will in the future.
