Leonardo DiCaprio was 23 years old in Titanic while his character, Jack, was 20 years old. The age gap wasn’t much and this aided him in delivering a believable performance as the drifter orphan who falls passionately in love with the upper-class Rose.
DiCaprio’s performance in Titanic catapulted him to heights of stardom that he would never match again but he effectively utilized it to establish an iconic acting career in which he would play a diverse range of roles, both younger and older.
What was Leonardo DiCaprio’s Age in Titanic?
Leonardo DiCaprio was 23 years old in Titanic which came out in 1997. Of course, the filming of the movie did not take place in 1997 but rather in 1996 when Leonardo DiCaprio was 22 years old. Despite this, he was still older than the character he portrayed namely Jack Dawson.
Jack Dawson is billed as a 20-year-old poor orphan from Wisconsin. He is often on the move traveling all over and wins tickets to the ship in a poker game. In the cause of the journey, he meets the great love of his life but their story is doomed after the ship is involved in a tragic mishap.
Part of what helped Leonardo DiCaprio to land his iconic role on Titanic was his age. He was 21 years old when cast and 22 when filming started. He was thus considered to be perfect to portray a 20-year-old and beat the likes of Matthew McConaughey and Stephen Dorff who were deemed a bit too old.
Leonardo DiCaprio went on to show that he was not only age appropriate for the role of Jack Dawson but also quite talented. He immensely contributed to the film’s success.
Titanic grossed over $2 billion and made history as the first-ever film to cross the billion-dollar mark. It also won 11 Academy Awards in one night, including awards for best picture and best director.
Leonardo DiCaprio missed out on an Oscar nomination for best actor and this enraged his fans. He however got other accolades and the movie made him a global superstar.
The Age Difference between Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet in Titanic
Leonardo DiCaprio is a year older than Kate Winslet, his Titanic co-star. He was born on the 11th of November 1974 while she was born on the 5th of October 1975. The age gap is a bit wider when their iconic Titanic characters are considered. DiCaprio’s Jack is 20 years old while Winslet’s Rose is 17 years old. This means that Leonardo DiCaprio’s Titanic character is three years older than Winslet’s Rose.
This is undoubtedly an age-appropriate romance and the two individuals involved did a wonderful job, leaning to glowing reviews. They were praised for infusing their doomed love affair with so much emotion that swept audiences up. They were also labeled one of Hollywood’s most iconic screen couples ever.
Many movie fans over the years started yearning for the duo to date in real life but this never happened. They remained good friends and worked together on Revolutionary Road, a 2008 drama about a couple in a failed marriage.
How Old was Leonardo DiCaprio in What’s Eating Gilbert Grapes?
Leonardo DiCaprio was 19 years old in What’s Eating Gilbert Grapes. The 1993 film follows a young man named Gilbert who has to care for his morbidly obese mom as well as his intellectually disabled younger brother named Arnie. Johnny Depp played the titular character while DiCaprio was Arnie.
He (DiCaprio) went to great lengths to deliver including studying the life of children with intellectual disabilities and ended up doing a great job. It marked one of his breakthrough roles. Leonardo DiCaprio’s character in What’s Eating Gilbert Grapes is initially 17 years old but he later turns 18. He spends much of his time as a 17-18-year-old but as the movie comes to an end and there is a time jump to a year later, he turns 19 years old.
Therefore, Leonardo DiCaprio was a year older or even the same age as his What’s Eating Gilbert Grapes character. For his performance, he received an Oscar nomination for best supporting actor in 1993 and even though he did not win, he still made history as the 7th youngest actor to land that nomination.
Leonardo DiCaprio similarly failed to win a Golden Glove award nomination in that same category but the NYC-based National Board of Review of Motion Picture handed him a gong.
How Old was Leonardo DiCaprio in Romeo and Juliet?
Leonardo DiCaprio was 22 years old in Romeo and Juliet, the 1996 crime romance drama. His character, Romeo, on the other hand, is described as a 16-17-year-old boy. Romeo and Juliet is an adaptation of the famous Shakespeare novel of the same name. It focuses on two mafia families in the United States, the Montagues and the Capulets, who are sworn enemies.
Their children, Juliet Capulet and Romeo Montague fall in love, but they forbid them from exploring it. The two young people plan how to escape the clutches of their family, but a failure in communication makes Romeo believe that Juliet has poisoned herself to death. He drinks his own poison and dies, and Juliet, upon discovering his death, kills herself.
DiCaprio was 21 years old when Romeo and Juliet was filmed while his co-star Claire Dane was 16 years old and playing a 13-year-old Juliet. This casting was praised by the critics for being age-appropriate, with the two stars’ performance described as luminous. The movie grossed $147.6 million on a budget of $14.5 million. For his efforts, Leonardo DiCaprio was named the best actor at the 1997 International Film Festival held in the German city of Berlin.
What is Leonardo DiCaprio’s Age Now?
Leonardo DiCaprio is presently 49 years old. The actor and producer was born on the 11th of November 1974 in Los Angeles, California. His mother is named Irmelin, while his dad’s name is George.
DiCaprio grew up in various parts of Los Angeles and began his career at the age of 14, appearing in TV ads for various companies. By 1989, 15-year-old Leonardo DiCaprio had scored his first acting appearance in two episodes of New Lassie, a family-oriented drama series that ran from 1989 to 1992.
The 90s saw Leonardo DiCaprio consolidate his acting career by appearing in notable films such as Titanic and Romeo and Juliet. These movies made him quite popular, but they also projected him as a boyish teen symbol even though he was already in his 20s. The Los Angeles native desperately wanted to shed this image, and so agreed to play a gang leader in 2002’s Gangs of New York.
That movie and other subsequent ones, such as 2012’s Django Unchained (where he plays a plantation and slave owner) and 2015’s The Revenant (where he plays a frontiersman living and surviving in the wild) helped DiCaprio move past being the teen symbol. He is now an iconic leading man in Hollywood, but many people would never forget his role as Jack Dawson in Titanic.
