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Leonardo DiCaprio: America was born in the streets ...
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Page 2
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Cameron Diaz loses herself in an 1800s-style tough girl ...
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Page 3
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Cameron and Leo: O.G.s with chemistry ...
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Kelly Rowland goes toe to toe with Leonardo DiCaprio and Cameron Diaz of Martin Scorcese's epic "Gangs of New York," taking on Leo solo, Cameron alone and then bringing it all together for a three-way free-for-all.
Kelly Rowland: At the beginning of "Gangs of New York" I noticed there was some dirt on your face. And the more dirt you got on your face, the more beautiful you became. Your character, Amsterdam was wonderful. Can you describe him?
Leonardo DiCaprio: Amsterdam is kind of a composite character that we developed who represented the hordes of Irish immigrants that were coming into our country during the Civil War. It was primarily based on first-hand accounts of Irish orphans and what their life was like living in the Five Points, which was one of the seediest areas in all of New York. What it was like to be a thief, what it was like to grow up with nothing and primarily, what it was like to try to stake a claim for yourself in the real world. With the growing of our country at the time, all kinds of immigrants were coming in and looking for opportunities.
Amsterdam was developed through a series of conversations between Mr.Scorcese and myself.
Rowland: How was it working with Martin Scorcese? He's just amazing. I can only imagine how the relationship was with a director like that.
DiCaprio: It's interesting, because he gives; he has such love for actors. He trusts you completely, but at the end of the day he is somebody who is so detail-oriented and takes what he does so seriously that he guides you to where he wants you to be in the scene, but he never tells you that you are doing something wrong. He lets you sort of discover things on your own, and have your own process. He really respects the actor's process and he really loves actors, which is why I think he reaps such great performances in his movies
Rowland: The chemistry between you and Cameron Diaz is so awesome. The passion was just too much for me. I couldn't take it.
DiCaprio: The love scenes and the reason that they have so much passion and energy and they are also mixed with violence is because of the environment that these two characters live in. It's the only way they know how to react to each other on a sort of primal, instinctive street level. It's much different than any other love story I've ever done before.
Rowland: It was so street that y'all were just so conniving ...
DiCaprio: That's the great thing about the movie, too. It tells a story about America, of how our country transformed into what it is today, but on a real primal street level as opposed to something that is too highly political. It's how people dealt with it in the lower class, in the streets, in the urban civilization. That's what I really love about it.
Rowland: Two big movies in December, Steven's Spielberg's "Catch Me if You Can" and this. How was it to transform into both worlds like that?
DiCaprio: That's my favorite thing about acting, all the pre-production of figuring out the different personality traits of each character.
"Catch Me if You Can," is going to be a much different thing. ... It's a true story of this con man who was one of the most successful con artists of all time and did it all before he was 18 and legal. It was a different time, a different ethical code. It was a time before there was a centralized computer system to catch criminals. It's when people got by on charm and their interactions with other people.
They are much different characters and that's what I want to do as an actor. ... I want the combination of doing what I do and also being able to be a character actor in that sense.
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Photo: MTV Mews
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