He has seen it all and done it all. William Shakespeare’s Romeo + Juliet, Titanic, The Beach, Catch Me if You Can, Gangs of New York, The Aviator, The Departed, Blood Diamond.....they have all rushed out of Leonardo DiCaprio’s closet and have made him as famous and celebrated as he is right now. And another big project seems to heading DiCaprio’s way; this time it is the screen version of ‘I, Claudius’.
The three-time Academy Award-nominated and Golden Globe Award-winning American actor who has more to his acting than the Jack Dawson lover boy character that he has come to symbolize since his performance in Titanic is being mooted to star in the big budget movie after the rights to Robert Graves’s novel were obtained by veteran producer Scott Rudin. DiCaprio and screenwriter William Monahan are supposed to be pairing up once more for this film; the duo had earlier worked successfully on Martin Scorsese’s Oscar-winning crime drama The Departed.
Rave’s novel ‘I, Claudius’ was first published in 1934. A Roman epic and autobiography of the fourth emperor of Rome who ruled from AD 41-54, the story explores the politics at work in the Roman Empire at the time. Director Josef von Sternberg adapted the story in 1937 and in 1976, the BBC ran a mini-series on it.
Leonardo DiCaprio won huge critical acclaim for the roles of Danny Archer and Billy Costigan that he played in Blood Diamond and The Departed respectively. He is currently filming the movie Revolutionary Road and has been announced to play the role of Theodore Roosevelt in the movie The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt scheduled for 2008. Meanwhile producer Scott Rudin is busy too these days. He recently produced The Queen and Notes on a Scandal and his next assignments include Wes Anderson’s The Darjeeling Limited and Paul Thomas Anderson’s There Will Be Blood.
Source: The Guardian, UK
Image Source: Thecinemasource.com
