Leonardo DiCaprio is reiterating his conviction that he will never become a filmmaker. At the A Year in TIME event in Manhattan, DiCaprio remarked, “Some people have asked me if I wanted to direct. “I’m like, ‘I would never want to direct.’ I could never do anything close to what Martin Scorsese does. Why would I do that?”
After working with directors like Scorsese and Alejandro G. Iñárritu on “The Revenant,” the actor earlier told Variety in 2016 that he felt “cursed to probably ever work as a director myself.” Scorsese met DiCaprio onstage for a 25-minute chat after DiCaprio was named TIME’s 2025 Entertainer of the Year. The only “regret” DiCaprio expressed on their long-standing partnership was not spending more time watching Scorsese’s work under the lens.
DiCaprio elaborated,“I’ve been so focused on what I’ve been doing [laughs] as an actor; you make these decisions, you play these characters, you try to get into the depth of their soul as much as you possibly can. I would have loved to be much more of a voyeur, to watch what you do behind the camera.”
The filmmaker-actor tandem is now in pre-production on their seventh project together, an Apple Original Films adaptation of the ghost story book “What Happens at Night.” Filming for the project is scheduled to start in February, according to DiCaprio, who will co-star with Jennifer Lawrence. Until then, DiCaprio is continuing to do what he does well, which is honing his methodical approach to the role and engaging with Scorsese about it as he goes.
“I think [our process of] working together is the ability to almost have a debate for months… lots of questions, lots of playing devil’s advocate about a way to approach things that may not be the most obvious direction,” DiCaprio added. “We’re doing that on the new film now, and it’s been absolutely one of the most profound learning experiences.”
