Leonardo Wilhelm DiCaprio
(/diˈkæprioʊ/; Italian: [diˈkaːprjo]; born November 11, 1974) is an
American actor and film producer. Known for his work in biopics and period films, DiCaprio has
received numerous accolades throughout his career, including an Academy Award, a British
Academy Film Award, a Screen Actors Guild Award, and three Golden Globe Awards. As of
2019, his films have grossed over $7.2 billion worldwide, and he has been placed eight times in
annual rankings of the world's highest-paid actors.
Born in Los Angeles, DiCaprio began his career in the late 1980s by appearing in television
commercials. In the early 1990s, he had recurring roles in various television shows, such as the
sitcom Parenthood. DiCaprio had his first major film role as author Tobias Wolff in This Boy's
Life (1993). At age 19, he received critical acclaim and his first Academy Award and Golden
Globe Award nominations for his performance as a developmentally disabled boy, Arnie Grape,
in What's Eating Gilbert Grape (1993). He achieved international stardom in the epic
romance Titanic (1997), which became the highest-grossing film to that point. After a few
commercially unsuccessful films, DiCaprio starred in two successful features in 2002: the
biographical crime drama Catch Me If You Can and the historical drama Gangs of New York,
which marked the first of his many successful collaborations with director Martin Scorsese.
DiCaprio portrayed Howard Hughes in The Aviator (2004) and continued to receive acclaim for
his performances in the political thriller Blood Diamond (2006), the crime drama The
Departed (2006), and the romantic drama Revolutionary Road (2008). In the 2010s, he starred in
the science fiction thriller Inception (2010), the western Django Unchained (2012), the biopic The
Wolf of Wall Street (2013), the survival drama The Revenant (2015)—for which he won an
Academy Award and a BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role—and the comedy-
drama Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (2019), all of which were critical and commercial
successes.
DiCaprio is the founder of Appian Way Productions—a production company that has produced
some of his films and the documentary series Greensburg (2008–2010)—and the Leonardo
DiCaprio Foundation, a nonprofit organization devoted to promoting environmental awareness.
He regularly supports charitable causes and has produced several documentaries on the
environment. In 2005, he was named a Commander of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres for his
contributions to the arts, and in 2016, he was named one of the 100 most influential people in the
world by Time magazine.
