Leo: Portrait of the Young Man as an Artist

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As executive producer, DiCaprio led Scorsese and screenwriter John Logan (Gladiator, Any Given Sunday) through 15 script revisions over two years, mostly in an effort to make Hughes' obsessive-compulsive disorder meaningful but not maudlin. "I loved those meetings," says DiCaprio. "Just talking about ideas with people, giving the movie time to breathe--that's like complete heaven for me." He spent plenty of time preparing to play Hughes. "I don't know what he's talking about with this 10 seconds of focus stuff," says Scorsese, and laughs. "Don't let him kid you--he's incredibly thorough." DiCaprio read thousands of pages of Hughes biographies, watched old newsreel footage and spent days with obsessive-compulsive-disorder expert Dr. Jeffrey Schwarz, but is so conditioned to tamp down interest in himself that he is reluctant to discuss it. "Trust me, dawg," he says dismissively, "you don't want to hear about it."

By smothering his personality and focusing on cinema greatness, DiCaprio may succeed in transforming the spooky adolescent lust he once inspired into admiration, but he runs the risk that his earnestness and single-mindedness will eventually exhaust audiences. He knows that and says he's quite open to playing "a Cary Grant thing," though he immediately adds, "only if there's a certain amount of reality and authenticity to the characters. I can't get into things where I just don't buy it." (Don't look for him opposite Sandra Bullock anytime soon.)

"I'll probably make s___y choices in the future, I'm sure," he continues. "You need a Heaven's Gate in there once in a while," he says, referring to the legendary film flop. "But what thrills me right now is disappearing into a role that matters, in movies that matter." Of course, DiCaprio is too rich, too pretty and too famous to ever disappear completely, but if he will never quite be a character actor, at least he is on his way to being an actor with character.