Page 84 - OCEAN BLUE - SPRING 2016

THE INTERVIEW
S ince What’s Eating Gilbert Grape,
he has received nominations for
Oscars, and many other awards
for both his producer and acting
work in films such as: The Basketball Diaries,
Romeo and Juliet, Titanic, The Man in the Iron
Mask, and The Aviator just to name a few.
The Aviator which he produced and acted in,
as well as his role in The Wolf of Wall Street,
DiCaprio’s fifth collaboration with Director
Martin Scorsese, and The Revenant earned him
Golden Globe Awards. It is no surprise to most
that this time around he got the coveted film
industry prize. The Revenant and its powerful
team also won Oscars for Best Director, and
Best Cinematography.
DiCaprio’s production company is called
Appian Way. Its first production was The
Assassination of Richard Nixon and then The
Aviator. Later with Appian Way he wrote,
produced and narrated The 11th Hour, a
documentary about the environment, a topic
that is close to the actor’s heart. Other Appian passions, the wilderness. DiCaprio took the
Way productions include Shutter Island, The
Ides of March, and Red Riding Hood to name a
few. They have recently acquired the rights to
make a movie about the Volkswagen emissions
scandal.
Photo: YU TSAI
84 www.oceanblueMAGAZINE.com
DiCaprio is single, and has an apartment in
the TriBeCa neighborhood in New York. He
bought an island in Belize where he wants
to build an eco-friendly resort and owns an
apartment in Riverhouse, an eco-friendly
building overlooking the Hudson River in
Manhattan, as well as mansions in Hollywood
Hills, and Palm Springs and a Malibu beach
house. The actor, producer and activist, is
a very busy man and devoted to saving the
planet and to perfecting his art. He is a self-
taught 41-year-old, currently number 89 on
the list of Top 100 Celebrity Earners, ringing
off at $29 million in 2015. Celebrity Net Worth
sets DiCaprio’s net value at $245 million. He
earned a cool $20 million for The Revenant and
$55 million for the now classic film, Titanic.
DiCaprio sees a conflicted world and he is
making heroic efforts to change what he sees
as planetary suicide, largely based on the
overexploitation of the world’s resources
without regard to the destruction it leaves
behind. The Revenant explores, within its
plot context, a subject that is one of the actor’s
opportunity of accepting his Oscar for the
movie to plead for planetary health, “Our
planet cannot be saved unless we leave fossil
fuels in the ground where they belong."
He has created The Leonardo DiCaprio
Foundation (LDF) which has distributed
over $30 million since 2010 to fund 78 high-
impact projects in more than 44 countries
across South-East Asia, Central Asia, Africa,
North, Central and South America, the
Eastern Pacific, the Arctic, Antarctica, the
South Pacific, and the Indian Ocean. His
organization is implementing innovative
and environmental projects that have direct
impact around the globe. Leonardo’s website
and social media platforms are also dedicated
to inspiring the public to take action on key
environmental issues and has over 25 million
followers. He states, “Raising awareness on
the most pressing environmental issues of our
time is more important than ever.”
DiCaprio got involved in protecting the
environment because he is aghast that only
three percent of universal philanthropic
money is dedicated to saving the environment.