Leonardo DiCaprio Quotes

Every film is a crapshoot. It's a mystery when a movie comes together. I've never been able to figure it out. I don't know how I make my choices. The only thing you can do is know there's something about a character that you really want to experience.

When I start writing a new imaginary future, I have no idea what it is. The characters arrive first. They help me figure out where they are living and I get to fill in the gaps with that and where we are. So when I get to the end of the process of composition, if I feel that I have really done my job, I have no idea what I've got - and I then spend essentially the rest of my life figuring out what it might mean.

We didn't talk about devil on the set. My mother and I didn't talk about it. Billy Friedkin and I didn't talk about it. It was a closet subject. But it was the best thing that happened because I had no idea what I was going.

You never know what to expect when you're a writer visiting a movie set.

Part of filmmaking is always a guessing game, and part of it is always a game of trust.

My job, as an actor, is to give the director options. You can only hope that the takes that you thought were the best were chosen. But, then again, if I don't watch it, I'll never know.

And as I've gotten deeper into the process of making films and television and such, I think I have more trust in the fact that you really never know what you're going to find after the twenty-fifth take.

Sometimes I see it and then paint it. Other times I paint it and then see it. Both are impure situations, and I prefer neither.

Twelve years on sets watching directors, I've taken a bit from everybody and rejected a lot.

I appreciate my role as an actor much more after I direct because it's just easier.

I never wanted to be a director. I came into this industry by the little door, so I never learned anything; I never went to school. Actors will tell you I'm very precise. I just have the intuition of doing things.

Sometimes I think that I understand my movies after I make them. Really. I go very often off of instinct.

I'd have to say the whole experience in making The Neverending Story. I had an incredible time.

I didn't have a business degree. I didn't have experience to work in somebody else's office. I never built or ran a department. So I was on this journey, and when the time came to make a decision, I was just going with my gut.

I was directing before I knew it was called that.

What's fascinating is that when you write a script, it's almost a stream of consciousness. You have an idea that it means something, but you're not always sure what. Then when you get on the set, the actors teach you.

I learned a lot from Ana Ortiz, who plays my sister in 'Sleeping with the Fishes'.

Most of my life, I've been on a film set. There isn't anything to learn, not learn, unlearn. It's just in me.

The thing is, even though you think a lot about your movie, and there's a lot of preparation behind it, the final end result completely goes beyond it. It's not something you're aware of.

Quite often, I have a compelling sense of how a role should be played. And I'm proved - equally as often - quite wrong.

I feel that being an actor is a front-row seat into seeing how everybody else makes their movies. Basically, being in the trenches for ten years is like a college-level course in filmmaking if not more. It feels like every director I work with and every set that I visit as an actor, I see someone else's definition of filmmaking.

When you conceive the scene, you go, 'That is scary, right?' When you shoot it, a lot of times you're not quite sure. Hopefully what you can shoot is what your conception is.

You walk on a set, and you have no idea - that's why I don't storyboard. It's all possible.

Sometimes, the fate of a film is not in your hands, and you can only take home some experiences and what you got to learn during the journey.

You never have any idea where your movie's going to go when you're shooting - you're in this little bubble.