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ABC Nightline’s Cynthia McFadden Interviews Martin Scorsese & Leonardo DiCaprio

Cash for your car

Two Hollywood film giants, one behind the camera and one in front, reunite for a fourth project in eight years about the investigation of a woman who murdered her children called “Shutter Island” “Nightline” co-anchor Cynthia McFadden sits down with legendary director Martin Scorsese and award-winning actor Leonardo DiCaprio to talk about the film, how they met, their feelings about each other, their audience and the price of show business.  Here are some excerpts from the fascinating McFadden interview, courtesy of ABC News Nightline…

On the joy of making movies:

Cynthia McFadden: So it’s a lot more fun to make the movies than to talk about the movies, I suspect, yes?

Martin Scorsese: Sometimes.

Leonardo DiCaprio: Sometimes, yeah. And fun is not always the operative word when making a movie. In this case, I don’t know, would you describe this one as fun? I wouldn’t describe it as fun — it was hard work, very rewarding and, you know, for me anyway, it uncovered a lot about the character that wasn’t necessarily on the page on first glance. … I never expected the experience to be, what it was, I really didn’t.

On DiCaprio’s acting methods:

LD: “Rage, no it’s not hard,” the actor said. “I don’t think so. I like that, that kind of stuff. It’s a release, because it allows me to do things that I would absolutely never normally be able to do in real life or wouldn’t allow myself to do. It allows you to go to places that you, that I, for whatever decisions I’ve made in my life, won’t allow myself to go. So it is like embodying somebody else for a period of time, and then you get to walk away from it. And then it becomes burned into celluloid and it’s something that you can look at, like a book on your shelf.”

On the price of playing dark roles:

LD: “Every time I play one of these roles, the loss of control that you have, it’s suffocating, in a way, and it’s something that — it’s so dark — it’s something that you don’t like to dwell on too much. So for me, you know, playing these roles, as much as you don’t want to let any of that stuff penetrate your real life, there was a mood that I had throughout this entire film that was very somber, there was a very somber feeling on set, especially shooting in an abandoned mental ward as well. Literally, you could feel the stories around you.”

On how they met:

MS: He introduced me to him. And he told me when he did “This Boy’s Life,” he says, “There’s this young kid you have to work with sometime, he’s very good, doing this film now, “This Boy’s Life.” I say, “What’s his name?” He told me, so I watched that and I watched “Gilbert Grape,” and I say he’s good, he’s interesting — and you were very young at that the time, what was it?

LD: I was 16.

On the dynamic between DiCaprio and Scorsese:

CM: But I’m interested — it’s so hard to put into words these kinds of things. … What is it between the two of you?

MS: Part of it is having gone through the experience of “Gangs of New York,” and then it was sort of galvanized by “Aviator” I think, because it was such a complex character that we were trying to play with there. But then “Departed” was another one. That really touched upon areas and levels that I hadn’t expected, which was good, which meant he’s maturing…

On their conflicts:

CM: When was the last time you had a fight? Have you?

LD: We don’t really have fights.

MS: No.

LD: That sounds really like an old, married couple in therapy.

On their appreciation of each other:

CM: Liking each other must make it better?

LD: It does, yeah, absolutely. Look, for me it’s very simple, I’m getting to work with a master filmmaker and I am inspired by working with him. And more so than all that, he kind of has this infectious appreciation for cinema as an art form … and when you’re around someone that loves movies that much and has such a commitment to making good movies, you get on that rollercoaster too, and everyone enjoys that process — it’s infectious.

CM: What do you think you give him?

LD: I think you’d have to ask him that — I’d never be so presumptuous as to sit here and say…

On a potential Sinatra film:

MS: We’re trying, we’re trying. There’s a couple…

CM: What do you think?

LD: I don’t know, I have no answers for that, I don’t know. He’s working on it.

CM: Would you like to do it if it’s offered?

LD: If he calls me up for something, it’s hard to say no, it’s hard to say no, but we’ll see.

CM: As a betting man, do you think you’ll be making that picture?

MS: It could be, it very well could be. We just had some meetings on it in Los Angeles and we’re going to the nest step and see what we can do, you know. It’s a matter of timing too.

LD: Timing, money.

On DiCaprio playing Sinatra:

CM: But is Leo who you’d like to see play the character?

MS: I think so, yeah. I feel that. It’s a matter of how do you approach that character? Where do you start, where do you end? It’s a big job.

On audience approval:

CM: Does it matter whether people like it or not?

MS: Of course, you want an audience to, I’d like people to like my work, that’s nice — or responding to it. Respond, right? I mean it’d be nice if they do, touch certain chords in the audience, that sort of thing.

LD: The only one thing I’ve learned in my career … the only thing you know is that you have no control of what people think, you only can go in there with the best intentions, give everything you possibly can, try your best to make the best possible movie you can. Then it’s kind of like giving birth, you give it out to the world and it will either become a juvenile delinquent or the next president of the United States.

Cynthia McFadden’s interview with Martin Scorsese and Leonardo DiCaprio airs on ABC News “Nightline” Wednesday, February 17, 2010 at 11:35pm (ET/PT).  For more excerpts, click HERE.

“Nightline” is anchored by Cynthia McFadden, Terry Moran, and Martin Bashir James Goldston is the executive producer.  “Nightline” airs at 11:35 p.m. (ET/PT) weeknights on the ABC Television Network.

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Lanee Neil