Leonardo DiCaprio has one big regret about his career.
“I’ll say it even though you’re here: My biggest regret is not doing ‘Boogie Nights,’” DiCaprio, 50, told Paul Thomas Anderson, who directed the 1997 porn epic, during an Esquire interview published Wednesday.
“It was a profound movie of my generation,” DiCaprio stated, adding, “I can’t imagine anyone but Mark [Wahlberg] in it.”
The Hollywood icon told Anderson, 55, that he thought “Boogie Nights” was “a masterpiece” when he saw it for the first time.
“It’s ironic that you’re the person asking that question,” DiCaprio said to the director, “but it’s true.”
DiCaprio turned down the role of Eddie Adams/Dirk Diggler in “Boogie Nights” to play Jack in James Cameron’s disaster film “Titanic.”
Wahlberg, 54, took the lead role in Anderson’s film about a young nightclub dishwasher who becomes a porn star.
The movie, which was nominated for three Oscars, also stars Julianne Moore, Burt Reynolds, Don Cheadle, John C. Reilly, William H. Macy, Philip Seymour Hoffman and Heather Graham.
In 2008, DiCaprio spoke to GQ about choosing “Titanic” over “Boogie Nights.”
“I’m not saying I would have,” he said when asked if he could go back and change his decision. “But it would have been a different direction, careerwise. I think they’re both great and wish I could have done them both.”
“I would have been happy to do them both,” the Oscar winner continued. “And the truth is, if I’d not done ‘Titanic,’ I wouldn’t be able to do the types of movies or have the career I have now, for sure. But it would have been interesting to see if I had gone the other way.”
DiCaprio, who is starring in Anderson’s upcoming action thriller “One Battle After Another,” told the director that he “rarely” watches his own films, but he’s seen “The Aviator” the most.
“That’s simply because it was such a special moment to me,” he said of starring in the Howard Hughes biopic. “I had worked with Marty [Scorsese] on ‘Gangs of New York,’ and I’d been toting around a book on Howard Hughes for ten years. I almost did it with Michael Mann, but there was a conflict and I ended up bringing it to Marty.”
“I was thirty,” DiCaprio recalled. “It was the first time as an actor I got to feel implicitly part of the production, rather than just an actor hired to play a role. I felt responsible in a whole new way. I’ve always felt proud and connected to that film as such a key part of my growing up in this industry and taking on a role of a real collaborator for the first time.”
The “Don’t Look Up” actor also explained how he’s made it a point to not overwork himself at this point in his career.
“I do things more sparingly, which means you’re anxious to get back to your real life once you’ve finished filming,” DiCaprio told Anderson. “Life goes on hold when you’re filming. Everything stops and gets put on the back burner in your real life. I might be more concerned if I worked too much.”
“To go from film to film, I would be scared about what do I have to come back to?” he added. “I’m very fortunate for that.”
