Leonardo DiCaprio Talks Flower Moon: Rewriting and Changing Characters – Miscellaneous

apple

Finally, Leonardo DiCaprio commented on the massive “Killers of the Flower Moon” rewrite that changed the direction of Martin Scorsese’s latest historical epic. The script originally centered around FBI agent Tom White, who was supposed to be played by DiCaprio, investigating a series of murders among the Osage people in the 1920s. This perspective brought the film in line with the majority of David Grann’s 2017 book of the same name, but something about telling “Flower Moon” from the FBI’s point of view didn’t sit right with DiCaprio or Scorsese.

“I didn’t feel like it got to the heart of the matter,” DiCaprio said She recently told British Vogue In a joint interview with star Lily Gladstone. “We weren’t immersed in the Osage story. There was this little scene between Molly and Ernest that sparked such emotions in us while reading, and we just started to sink into what that relationship was, because it was so twisted and strange and unlike anything I’d ever experienced before.”

DiCaprio plays Ernest Burkhart, a World War I veteran who is drawn into his uncle’s greedy plot to steal the riches of the Osage Nation. When the original script for “Flower Moon” was cancelled, DiCaprio switched the roles to Ernest. The new script will focus on Ernest and his relationship with his wife, Molly (Gladstone), an Osage woman whose family members were murdered. With DiCaprio playing the lead role, Jesse Plemons stepped in to play FBI agent Tom White, now in a supporting role.

“After a certain point, I realized I was making a film about all white men,” Scorsese said recently. Time magazine About why the film underwent such an extensive rewrite process. “That meant I was taking an outside-in approach, which was what mattered to me.”

“Before the rewrite, I had three pages of beautiful oral dialogue,” Gladstone told Interview magazine earlier this month. “But I was struggling so much with the scenes, that when COVID shut down everything and the project stopped for a minute, I assumed I had messed up the audition. About a year later, I got a request for a Zoom with Martin Scorsese. And then I got new sides sent to me that “It had beats. Suddenly, the scene had minimal dialogue…and I thought, ‘Man, I can deliver a character here now.’ This is amazing.'”

“The focus would have been on the FBI, with Molly and Ernest being part of the supporting story, rather than the central story,” Gladstone added of the original screenplay for “Flower Moon.” she he previously told Vulture The rewrite means the film “is not a white savior story. It’s the Osage saying, “Do something.” Here’s the money. Come and help us.”

DiCaprio told British Vogue that Scorsese “instinctively knew” that Gladstone was the perfect actor to handle Molly.

DiCaprio added: “There was an honesty in your eyes that he saw even on the computer screen.” “I never knew [Scorsese] You meet someone and then right afterward you have the pull and the instinct to say, “Let’s not wait another minute.”

Killers of the Flower Moon opens in theaters nationwide on October 20 from Apple and Paramount.