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Different role for Leonardo DiCaprio in 11th Hour
By Amira Hashish, Evening Standard 06.06.08
Passionate: Leonardo DiCaprio feels strongly about environmental issues
New role: DiCaprio produced the film
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Urgent: The 11th Hour
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From The Departed to Titanic, Leonardo DiCaprio has starred in a wealth of box-office hits. But one of his more recent films sees the actor in a new light.
For The 11th Hour, Leonardo produces and presents an environmental documentary. His main aim is to encourage audiences to take action against global warming; informing them of how to do so. The high-profile environmental campaigner calls on experts, including Stephen Hawking and Mikhail Gorbachev, for advice.
Here he gives us an insight into why he chose to get involved in the project, what makes it so important and what the future holds for his acting career...
LEONARDO DICAPRIO ON:
MERGING PASSIONS
Environmental issues have always been a huge passion of mine ever since I was very young. I was very affected by the media, much like this movie. I was influenced by documentaries that I saw as a young kid about the rainforest, the police, the mass extinction that's going on right now. So, for me, it's a merging of two worlds. This is my experience in this business and learning how to affect people emotionally through film. It has been pretty profound and a great learning curve for me.
WHY HE MADE THE FILM
I think that the whole purpose in making this movie is to reach out to people who are not aware of or interested in the issues it raises. It really stemmed from wanting to listen to the consensus of the overwhelming majority of the scientific community. I wanted to hear what these people had to say in an uninterrupted form and to understand their life's work. It was about asking questions. And hopefully, when people see this movie, they'll be emotionally impacted and want to do something about it.
THE SHOCK FACTOR
It's a human film, wherein you realize the harsh realities of what will happen if we continue with business as usual. But we also highlight the great possibilities that are out there. There are technologies that are in place right now that can reduce the ecological imprint by 90 percent. And it's time that we started urging the powers-that-be to try to infuse this into our daily lives, to the point where we don't even need to think about it anymore.
ROLES
For this film I wanted to play the role of somebody who is hopefully asking the right questions of people that have devoted their lives to global warming. I've always been very vocal about environmental issues, and I'm going to continue to be. I'll continue to act as well because it's simply a passion of mine.
TRYING SOMETHING NEW
Making this movie has been a three-year process. It is homemade in a lot of ways and a very unique part of my career. It's different from going off filming for three or four months. This has taken hundreds of hours with these women in the editing room, condensing thousands of hours of footage into an hour and a half, and trying to make a film that will really make an impact people.
THE FUTURE
The 11th Hour is a throwback to a lot of political films that I enjoyed in the 70s, like Parallax View or Three Days of the Condor. And I'd love to be a part of more films like that if the stories are good enough and if there are great narratives. I'm a huge advocate for making those types of movies, and that's why Blood Diamond was big on my radar as was the new film; House of Lies with Ridley Scott. I would just hope that enough people go to see them so the studios will be encouraged to make more films like that in the future, knowing that there's an audience for them.
NOW IT'S YOUR TURN
You could win the chance to make a documentary like Leonardo DiCaprio. To find out how click here
* The 11th Hour is out now on DVD
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