‘You never treated me like a kid’: Brendan Fraser recalls his first meeting with Leonardo DiCaprio
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA: Brendan Fraser recently remembered his first meeting with co-star Leonardo DiCaprio ahead of the release of their highly-anticipated Martin Scorsese film, ‘Killers of the Flower Moon.’ Prior to reuniting to the sets of Scorsese’s '20s Western crime drama, Fraser briefly met DiCaprio on the screening of the latter’s breakout film, ‘What’s Eating Gilbert Grape,’ which earned DiCaprio his first Oscar nomination.
“[Back then], when he was I think probably all of, I don’t know, 17, 16 years old maybe, he did ‘Gilbert Grape.’ I saw it on the Paramount lot,” Fraser told GQ. ‘The Whale’ star is a few years older than DiCaprio and was also beginning to establish himself in Hollywood at the time. “I think I had just been in ‘School Ties’ or something then, and I was, like, flummoxed but I just wanted to tell him, ‘Hear, hear. That was incredible,’” he recalled.
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‘That was meaningful’
While Fraser’s past encounter with DiCaprio was extremely brief, the former said that the ‘Titanic’ star remembered their first meeting when the duo reunited on the sets of ‘Killers of the Flower Moon’ and even brought up the 'The Mummy' star's encouraging words from years ago. “He repeated that to me. He remembered me,” Fraser told the publication. “He said: ‘You were the only guy who didn’t treat me like a little kid.’ He volunteered that to me. That was meaningful,” he added.
Fraser plays a supporting role in Scorsese’s crime drama about the murders in the Osage Nation while DiCaprio appears in the lead role alongside Robert De Niro and Lily Gladstone. DiCaprio portrays the character of Ernest Burkhart, who takes part in the Osage murders during the “Reign of Terror,” after being ordered by his uncle William Hale (De Niro) to kill his wife Mollie Kyle (Gladstone), an Osage woman, and her family members to gain control of their wealth and oil. Fraser plays the role of WS Hamilton, a corrupt attorney representing Hale. While the film marks DiCaprio’s seventh collaboration with Scorsese, this is Fraser's first time with the acclaimed director.
‘We were all looking for our next job’
Fraser’s reunion with DiCaprio and the memories of their first meeting was a reminder that the former was once a “bright young kid" who became a leading man right after his arrival in Hollywood, GQ noted. The actor said at the time he was one of a generation of actors, like his ‘School Ties’ costars Matt Damon, Ben Affleck and Chris O’Donnell, who were eyeing great roles in Hollywood.
“Everybody was fighting one another to get to New York to read for Martin Brest for Scent of a Woman,” Fraser recalled, adding, “We were all looking for our next job." While Fraser mostly appeared in dramatic roles like in ‘Gods and Monsters’ with Ian McKellen and ‘The Quiet American’ with Michael Caine, throughout the '90s and early 2000s, he reportedly had a fondness for stunts and physical comedy, which eventually became a major part of his work.
Several years later, Fraser and DiCaprio found themselves together again, this time on the set of a Scorsese film. “I was fantasizing that I felt like one of the apprentices in Michelangelo’s workshop,” Fraser told the outlet while speaking about his experience.
'Killers of the Flower Moon' is scheduled to be released in select theaters on October 6, before a wider release by Paramount Pictures in the US on October 20. It will eventually be available for streaming release on Apple TV+.