Sunday, January 21, 2007

DiCaprio denies he is 'cute meat'

Leonardo DiCaprio tells Newsweek during the magazine's annual roundtable discussion with Academy Award hopefuls that, in the wake of Titanic, he seriously thought about taking a sabbatical from acting. No, really. And not because he read my original review of the film.

He complains that, after the 1977 film's spectacular box-office success and multiple Oscar wins, he was back to being considered "another piece of cute meat" -- an image he had wanted to escape after his days on the cover of teen magazines: "It was pretty disheartening to be objectified like that. I wanted to stop acting for a little bit."

And yet, DiCaprio admits, "I can't say that it didn't give me opportunities. It made me, for the first time, in control of my career."

True enough: You can't say things have worked out badly for him since he went down with the ship.

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