Leonardo DiCaprio is not just a name among the A-listers in Hollywood; he is perhaps one of the greatest acting icons ever in the history of cinema whose multiple box office successes have contributed to his immensely high net worth. He is an institution in performance — one whose cerebral pursuit of the perfect role with the best script has helped produce some of the greatest classics in the first two decades of 21st-century cinema.
Born on 11 November 1974, DiCaprio started his acting career at the age of five with the children’s television show Romper Room (1953–1994), appearing in the first episode of the 27th season in 1979. Thereafter, he found work in some commercials and educational films.
In 1989, he got a break on television with the series The New Lassie (1989–1992). He then did bit roles in TV shows The Mickey Mouse Club, The Outsiders and Santa Barbara in 1990. The same year, he landed a main role in the series Parenthood (1990–1991) and followed it up with another primary portrayal in the final season of Growing Pains from 1991 to 1992, which marks the last DiCaprio appearance on a television show to date.
In 1991, DiCaprio made his big-screen debut in the direct-to-video movie Critters 3. The following year, he took up a small role in the limited theatrical film Poison Ivy.
He hasn’t had a setback in his cinematic career since his full-fledged theatrical debut with This Boy’s Life (1993) in which he played the lead role of the boy named Tobias Wolff. While the role of his character’s mother was played by Ellen Barkin, the role of the abusive stepfather was played by Robert De Niro. DiCaprio and De Niro worked on screen together on three more projects: Marvin’s Room (1996), the short film The Audition (2015) and Killers of the Flower Moon (2023), in which DiCaprio plays De Niro’s nephew.
In 1997, DiCaprio, along with his now longtime friend Kate Winslet, became household stars globally with James Cameron’s Titanic. DiCaprio played the poor artist Jack Dawson who falls in love with the upper-class Rose, played by Winslet, on board the ill-fated RMS Titanic. The film earned 14 Academy Award nominations and won 11 of them, becoming only the second movie in history to win the highest number of Oscars after Ben-Hur (1959). Both DiCaprio and Winslet never looked back since.
Besides his illustrious cinematic career, what makes DiCaprio even more respected in the eyes of a large and influential progressive international community is his environmental activism. Indeed, the actor has used part of his fortune to give back to the community through universally lauded conservation efforts.
The Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation, which the actor created in 1998, has over 35 innovative conservation projects around the world designed to protect fragile ecosystems and key species. He has been the United Nations Messenger of Peace for climate change since 2014. Additionally, he is also a recipient of the Clinton Global Citizen Award and the World Economic Forum Crystal Award.
Leonardo DiCaprio: Cinematic career at a glance
Leonardo DiCaprio has appeared in 31 feature-length movies in his career, including Killers of the Flower Moon. Of them, he was the leading actor in 23, was a part of the leading ensemble in four and in supporting roles in the remaining films.
Several of these were received with unanimous critical acclaim and became box office blockbusters upon their release.
DiCaprio has had a long and fruitful association with director Martin Scorsese starting with Gangs of New York (2002). Including Killers of the Flower Moon, the two have combined forces on six movies. Each has been more successful than the previous at the worldwide box office.
His second most notable director pairing has been with Quentin Tarantino, for whom he worked in Django Unchained (2012) and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (2019).
The actor has also worked at least once with ace filmmakers such as Steven Spielberg (Catch Me If You Can, 2002), Ridley Scott (Body of Lies, 2008), Christopher Nolan (Inception, 2010), Clint Eastwood (J. Edgar, 2011), Baz Luhrmann (The Great Gatsby, 2013) and Alejandro G. Iñárritu (The Revenant, 2015).
Among the most critically and commercially successful movies of DiCaprio in his career are What’s Eating Gilbert Grape (1993), This Boy’s Life (1993), Marvin’s Room, William Shakespeare’s Romeo + Juliet (1996), Titanic, Catch Me If You Can, Gangs of New York, The Aviator (2004), The Departed (2006), Blood Diamond (2006), Shutter Island (2010), Inception, Django Unchained, The Great Gatsby, The Wolf of Wall Street (2013), The Revenant and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.
In total, all his films have cumulatively grossed over USD 7 billion at the worldwide box office.
For his performances, DiCaprio has received seven Academy Award nominations, including five for Best Actor, one for Best Supporting Actor and one for Best Picture as the producer of The Wolf of Wall Street.
Despite his incredible body of work, DiCaprio was often snubbed for the best actor award at the Oscars. He, thus, became the subject of hilarious internet memes for being one of the greatest actors never to have won an Academy Award until the day he finally won the Best Actor statuette for performance in The Revenant.
Besides his singular Oscar win and nominations, DiCaprio has won three Golden Globe Awards: Best Actor — Motion Picture Drama for The Aviator and The Revenant and Best Actor — Motion Picture Musical or Comedy for The Wolf of Wall Street.
The Revenant also earned him a BAFTA Award and a Screen Actors Guild Award in the Best Actor categories.
Salary and other earnings from movies
Leonardo DiCaprio’s performance in almost all of his films has been exceptional, resulting in their box office success and critical acclaim. This, in turn, has helped the actor command a fat paycheck for the intense roles he immortalises on the screen.
For instance, Titanic is fourth on the list of highest-grossing movies in box office history with USD 2.2 billion in lifetime gross. It is, in fact, the only 1990s movie in the top 33 of the list, giving an estimation of the box office juggernaut it was upon release.
Reports suggest that the salary he received for Titanic was only USD 2.5 million. But because of his backend agreement of 1.8 per cent on the gross, he ended up making around USD 40 million in total as the movie shattered box office records.
DiCaprio’s superstardom following Titanic ensured that his base paycheck jumped almost 10 times what he earned for Titanic in later years. As such, he was paid around USD 20 million per movie for films such as The Beach (2000), Blood Diamond, The Aviator, Catch Me If You Can, The Great Gatsby and The Revenant.
There were a few acclaimed ones for which he earned less. Two such examples are Gangs of New York and Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time In Hollywood (2019).
Gangs of New York is hailed for the magnificent performances by its cast, including DiCaprio’s and that of Daniel Day-Lewis, who earned an Oscar nomination for Best Actor for playing the sadistic William “Bill the Butcher” Cutting. For the film, DiCaprio received a basic salary of USD 10 million.
Once Upon a Time In Hollywood was another masterpiece by Tarantino, who brought out the polished talents of DiCaprio alongside the powerhouse Brad Pitt on the screen like never before. DiCaprio agreed to a base salary of USD 10 million, which was the same that Pitt received.
Then there were instances where he went for more than his average of USD 20 million. The Hollywood Reporter (THR) revealed in 2015 that DiCaprio received an upfront pay of USD 25 million for The Wolf of Wall Street (2013), which was the highest paid to any Hollywood star for the period in consideration. However, the report noted that his pay included his production fee. THR said that there were budget overruns, meaning that he had to defer part of his salary.
In November 2021, Vanity Fair reported that DiCaprio was paid USD 30 million for Don’t Look Up (2021). The report revealed that his pay was USD 5 million more than his co-star and lead Jennifer Lawrence, which caused a stir regarding the unjust pay gap between male actors and female actors in Hollywood.
DiCaprio was also paid USD 30 million by Apple for Killers of the Flower Moon, reported Variety in 2022. It made him the joint third-highest salary earner in Hollywood for the year with Brad Pitt, who was paid the same amount by Apple for the yet-untitled Formula 1 movie.
But Titanic isn’t the movie that got him his highest pay to date. That distinction goes to Inception (2010).
Directed by Christopher Nolan, who helmed some of the biggest box office successes in his career including The Batman trilogy, Inception is a sci-fi thriller about a team of “extractors” who steal valuable information by invading the dream space of their targets. DiCaprio played Dom Cobb, one of the extractors. The film grossed over USD 825 million at the worldwide box office and is the second-most financially successful movie in the actor’s career.
Forbes reported in August 2010 that DiCaprio took a pay cut “well under his normal USD 20 million” for the movie because of the risk involved given its convoluted storyline. But in exchange for the cut, he signed a first-dollar gross points payout with Nolan, ensuring he earned directly off the top of ticket sales. This eventually helped him earn as much as USD 50 million from the box office revenue alone. Adding the income from TV rights and DVD sales, the overall was much above that mark.
Appian Way Productions
Leonardo DiCaprio also has a production house, Appian Way Productions, which he founded in 2001. It is co-run by Jennifer Davisson besides DiCaprio. Appian Way has produced or co-produced several movies, documentaries and TV shows.
Some of them include movies that DiCaprio has starred in, such as The Aviator, Shutter Island, The Wolf of Wall Street, The Revenant and Killers of the Flower Moon.
Among the prominent movies not starring DiCaprio that Appian Way has backed are The Assassination of Richard Nixon (2004), George Clooney’s The Ides of March (2011), Ben Affleck’s Live by Night (2016) and Clint Eastwood’s Richard Jewell (2019).
Documentaries produced by Appian Way include Virunga (2014), Cowspiracy (2015), Sea of Shadows (2019), And We Go Green (2019) and The Loneliest Whale: The Search for 52 (2021) — each focusing on a subject related to the protection and conservation of the environment and natural world.
What is Leonardo DiCaprio’s net worth?
Estimates suggest that Leonardo DiCaprio has a net worth of around USD 300 million. As is evident, much of it is from his income as an actor.
Interestingly, DiCaprio has only once topped Forbes‘ annual list of highest-paid actors. He was placed at No.1 in 2011 with an income of USD 77 million between May 2010 and May 2011.
Investments in green causes and businesses
Leonardo DiCaprio is an angel investor who uses his vast wealth to fund sustainable companies.
According to investment tracker PitchBook, DiCaprio serves as a board member at Champagne J. De Telmont and is an advisor at Bluon, Cruz Foam, Aleph Farms and Mosa Meat. He was also associated with Obvious Ventures and Data Point Capital, among other businesses.
His most recent investment was reported in the media on 17 October 2023. Without mentioning the amount, the actor revealed that he has become an investor in Switzerland-based, B Corp-certified watch brand ID Genève.
“I am thrilled to be an investor in ID Genève, a brand that’s driving change in the luxury industry and beyond by consistently innovating and focusing on circular economy principles,” he said in a statement.
ID Genève makes its watch dials out of 100 per cent recycled steel in Switzerland. The watchmaker says that its Circular S model is made of “solar steel,” which, according to the company, is a type of steel that is produced in a furnace using a combination of mirrors and the sun’s rays.
PitchBook data shows that DiCaprio has invested in as many as five businesses in 2023 alone. These include the start-up Nuview, which, according to TechCrunch, raised USD 15 million in June 2023 on the back of funding from a group that included DiCaprio, MaC Venture Capital, Cortado, Florida Funders and Veto Capital, among others.
“We are thrilled to have Mr. DiCaprio’s support and other environmental advocates onboard that share our Nuview values to address global environmental challenges,” Nuview CEO and co-founder Clint Graumann said in a statement.
Nuview aims to map the entire landmass of Earth annually using space-based Light Detection and Ranging (Lidar) technology. PitchBook reveals that Nuview is the first space-based start-up in which the Oscar-winning actor has invested.
Sustainable food businesses usually draw DiCaprio’s attention. One of them is Formula 1 legend Lewis Hamilton’s Neat Burger chain. In April 2022, DiCaprio joined Hamilton’s team as a strategic investor.
“Disrupting our food system with sustainable alternatives is one of the key ways we can make a real difference in reducing global emissions,” DiCaprio said in a statement, adding, “Neat Burger’s pioneering approach to alternative proteins is a great example of the type of solutions we need moving forward.”
At the time, Neat Burger, which was launched in London in 2019, was aiming for USD 30 million in Series B funding. In April 2023, the chain opened its first US outlet in New York City.
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Around four years before investing in Neat Burger, DiCaprio joined Academy Award-winner Jared Leto and several other investors in a USD 50 million funding for plant-based beverage maker Califia Farms. In January 2020, the vegan food brand was able to raise USD 225 million in Series D funding led by the Qatar Investment Authority (QIA).
One of DiCaprio’s most famous investments is the vegan meat brand Beyond Meat. The company was founded in 2009 and grew to a modest size. In October 2017, Beyond Meat announced that the actor had officially joined the backers of the company.
“I am thrilled to officially welcome Leonardo DiCaprio to the Beyond Meat family,” Ethan Brown, the chief executive of Beyond Meat, said in a statement, adding, “His investment and role as an advocate reflects a shared vision that meat made directly from plants, like our Beyond Burger, has enormous benefits for human health, the climate, natural resources, and animal welfare.”
Brown revealed that the actor was involved with the company from its early days, providing feedback on the burgers before their launch.
“Livestock production is a major contributor to carbon emissions,” DiCaprio said in a statement. “Shifting from animal meat to the plant-based meats developed by Beyond Meat is one of the most powerful measures someone can take to reduce their impact on our climate,” he added.
Two years later, Beyond Meat went public. As of October 2023, the company has a market capital of more than USD 525 million.
Assets owned by Leonardo DiCaprio
Homes and private island
Leonardo DiCaprio is described by some outlets as a “real estate tycoon,” given that the total worth of all his properties comes to around USD 100 million. He has a specific love for Malibu, where he has bought and sold multiple properties in the last three decades.
It is believed that his first property in Malibu was a 158-square-metre house in Malibu’s Carbon Beach section, famously known as the “billionaire’s beach” for the row of homes of the super-rich next to it.
The Carbon Beach property was bought by DiCaprio in 1998 for USD 1.6 million. It was originally built in 1950 and had three bedrooms with two bathrooms. The most beautiful feature of the house was its large outdoor deck looking out towards the ocean.
DiCaprio initially used to reside in the house before putting it out on rent for several years, charging between USD 20,000 to USD 25,000 per month. The actor sold the property in 2021 for a reported USD 10.3 million, which was USD 300,000 more than the asking price.
In July 2021, months before selling the Carbon Beach property, he bought a larger property elsewhere in Malibu Beach for USD 13.8 million. Measuring 303 square metres, the house has four bedrooms and five bathrooms. It was originally built in 2005 on a plot measuring 1,335 square metres.
The Malibu connection ran much deeper. In 2002, DiCaprio bought a massive beach pad on Malibu Colony Road for USD 6 million. Known as a prime beach property, the 1927-built main house came with seven bedrooms and six bathrooms with floor-to-ceiling windows. It had a patio, deck and rooftop terrace — all facing the beach. The open floor planning allowed for larger outdoor living areas. There was also a separate guesthouse with its own kitchen. A gym was also built on the property.
Starting in 2012, the superstar began renting out the property for USD 75,000 per month before listing it for sale. The house was finally sold for USD 23 million by the end of 2013.
Besides the houses he owns or has sold, DiCaprio also reportedly has an undeveloped piece of land in Malibu which is worth USD 23 million.
Outside of Malibu, but within California, DiCaprio owns three more homes. It includes the first ever property he bought, in Oriole Way in Los Angeles in the early 1990s. Located high in the Hollywood Hills, the 418-square-metre compound was bought for around USD 2 million to USD 2.5 million from Madonna. DiCaprio added a basketball court to the property.
Over the next two decades, he added three neighbouring properties to the original compound that he purchased. This expanded the land area to a titanic 20,234 square metres, with 1,394 square metres of living space. The property now has 15 bedrooms spread across its four main houses. According to a June 2023 report by Daily Mail, DiCaprio started major renovation work on the property and was looking to add a fifth neighbouring residential house to his mega portfolio of real estate.
DiCaprio is one of the few celebrities who can boast of owning a house that has its own website.
Indeed, one of his most beautiful homes is at 432 Hermosa in California’s picturesque Palm Springs city. That address is also its official website, 432hermosa.com, where visitors can take a tour of the place and even book a stay.
Designed by architect Donald Wexler for the singer-actor Dinah Shore in 1964, the six-bedroom, 650-square-metre house with wood-panelled ceilings and floor-to-ceiling windows is seen as a gem from the Golden Age of Hollywood. Its location within the Old Las Palmas region of the city grants gorgeous views of both the mountains and the desert in the vicinity.
DiCaprio had it upgraded with more modern amenities after acquiring the 5,260-square-metre property in 2014 for USD 5.2 million. He turned it into a compound with a new gym, a tennis court, a refurbished sunken bar and a redesigned swimming pool. A casita and a separate guest house were added to the property.
The actor sometimes uses it as his vacation home. Those who wish to stay can do so at a starting price of USD 3,750 per night for a minimum of two nights.
In 2021, he bought a Spanish-style compound from actor Jesse Tyler Ferguson in the Los Feliz neighbourhood of Los Angeles for USD 7.1 million. Some reports say that it was bought in May for one of his parents.
In August of the same year, he sold a beautiful property in the Oaks neighbourhood next to Los Feliz for USD 5.75 million. He bought the house, which is surrounded by a verdant forest, in 2018 for USD 5 million. The property, named Red Oak Manor, was originally built in 1926 and underwent a two-year renovation by singer-songwriter-turned-residential-designer Moby before it was sold to the actor.
Riverhouse, One Rockefeller Park is a multistorey apartment building located in the residential neighbourhood of Battery Park City in New York City’s Manhattan Island.
Riverhouse offers one of the finest views of the River Hudson. Its interiors were designed by David Rockwell, exterior by Polshek Partnership Architects, and layouts by Ismael Leyva Architects.
The 32-storey, 258-unit condominium has LEED Gold certification, which is a USD government programme for green building standards. As such, its residents enjoy eco-friendly facilities such as filtered air, filtered water, lower energy costs and the use of non-toxic materials.
It, therefore, makes perfect sense that someone so environmentally conscious as DiCaprio would have not one but two apartments in the building. He bought the first in 2008 and the second in 2014, in deals that were USD 3.67 million and USD 8 million, respectively. Today, the combined worth of the apartments is more than USD 30 million.
Details of his first condominium purchase in the building are not clear, but the size of the second is 214 square metres with 93 square metres of outdoor space (a terrace overlooking the river). The second condominium has two bedrooms.
Among the common facilities for the residents of the high-rise are an approximately 15.2-metre lap pool, 24/7 concierge service, a yoga studio, a landscaped terrace, a billiard room and a dog spa. Its retail space houses the 45,000-volume poetry library named Poets House among other establishments.
DiCaprio also owns a private island. It is located near Belize, a Central American country whose Caribbean Sea coastline is an exploration-worthy paradise for superyacht owners.
The actor visited Belize in 2005 to swim in its barrier reef and, in his words to The New York Times (NYT) in 2015, “fell in love” with the place.
“It was like heaven on earth,” he said, adding, “And almost immediately, I found this opportunity to purchase an island there.”
Named Blackadore Caye, the 420,873-square-metre island is a wild, unpopulated spot which was purchased by the actor for just USD 1.75 million. For the purchase, he partnered with Jeff Gram, the owner of CayoEspanto Island Resort on another private island in Belize.
DiCaprio told NYT that he wanted to “do something that will change the world” with the island. He outlined his plans for building a mega eco-tourism resort in partnership with Paul Scialla, the CEO of New York City-based developer Delos.
He called it ‘Blackadore Caye, a Restorative Island’ and said that plans included multiple villas on a massive platform stretching like an arc on the waters, artificial reefs, fish shelters, infinity pools and all trappings of luxury. Mangrove trees destroyed by years of fishing activity in the region were to be replanted and indigenous marine grass was to be grown at a nursery on the island to support an area designed to protect manatee species.
The plan at the time was to open it by 2018. But cut to mid-2021, nothing had been developed on the island as massive protests delayed DiCaprio’s ‘ecological’ dream. According to The Sun, a conservation group, a tour company operator and several others mounted protests saying that the island attracts fly fishermen from around the world, who bring in over USD 100 million a year in revenue. By comparison, the actor’s team had assured the Belize government of an annual USD 10 million in revenues and 400 new jobs connected to the project.
The report said that villas, which would have numbered 116, would have either been rented out or sold at between USD 5 million and USD 15 million. The protesters contended that if DiCaprio’s plans of building an over-the-water platform arc with villas were to go through, then it would effectively destroy the fish breeding grounds.
“People were bristling. They got really bent out of shape by the notion that he was going to ‘heal’ us by building an over-the-top resort for rich people,” an activist told The Sun.
“[DiCaprio] is a complete hypocrite in my opinion. Fly fishing is a huge deal in Belize for the tourism industry. To call his plan green is totally disgusting,” another protester said.
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Cars and vehicles
It is believed that Leonardo DiCaprio has a fine car collection. Though it may not include the customary Ferraris, Lamborghinis and Bugattis that some other multi-millionaire Hollywood A-listers have in their garages, it is still a collection worth taking note of.
Unlike his real-estate deals, information about the cars he has is limited. The Sun reported in 2022 that his four-wheeler collection is worth USD 1 million. According to it, DiCaprio has a Range Rover SV Autobiography, a Fisker Karma, a Lexus RX Hybrid, a Porsche Cayenne, a Tesla Roadster, a Tesla Model S, a Toyota Prius, a Volvo XC90, a Polestar 2, an Audi Q7 and a Mercedes-Benz S500.
The common factor in all of them is that they are either all-electric or hybrid, which is understandable given the actor’s stature as an environmentalist. He has often been seen driving some of these, especially his Tesla Model S and the Volvo XC90.
The oldest car in his garage is perhaps the Toyota Prius. Back in 2006, DiCaprio confirmed that he owns one.
“I own a Toyota Prius; it’s a step in the right direction. It’s a gasoline-electric midsize car that gets about 50 miles per gallon. We have the technology to make every car produced in America today just as clean, cheap and efficient,” DiCaprio said.
At the time, he also bought three more, for his mother, father and step-father.
He also gifted a Toyota Prius to his former girlfriend Blake Lively (now married to Ryan Reynolds) during their brief relationship in 2011.
Private jets and yachts
Leonardo DiCaprio doesn’t own a private jet nor does he have a yacht. But he is known for frequently using both and has been called out in some quarters for his actions.
A 2022 Fox News report revealed that internal Sony emails published by WikiLeaks in 2015 said that DiCaprio took six round trips on private jets over the course of just six weeks in 2014 — the same year he was named by the UN as Messenger of Peace for climate change.
The actor made headlines in 2016 for reportedly flying around 12,875 km via private jet from Europe to New York City to accept an award for his environmental activism and then fly back to attend a charity event.
The same year, he took a private jet to the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland, where he received the Crystal Award for “leadership in tackling the climate crisis.”
His most recent yacht vacations include one in January 2023 when he was spotted on a luxury boat off the coast of the Caribbean island of St. Barts (Saint Barthélemy) and then again in June 2023 on the Amalfi Coast after attending the Cannes Film Festival. On the second occasion, DiCaprio reportedly used multiple helicopter rides from the luxury yacht to the land for lunch or dinner.
(Hero image: Courtesy of Mary Cybulski – © 2013 Paramount Pictures. All Rights Reserved./IMDb; Featured image: Courtesy of © 2004 Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc./IMDb)
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
– What is the movie Killers of the Flower Moon based on?
Killers of the Flower Moon is based on American journalist David Grann’s 2017 book of the same name which is about the Osage Nation murders of the 1920s in Osage County, Oklahoma, following the discovery of oil beneath their lands.
– Was Leo nominated for Titanic?
Yes, Leonardo DiCaprio, who is at times referred to as Leo by the media, was nominated by Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild in their acting categories but was not nominated for an Academy Award for Titanic.
– What movie did Leonardo DiCaprio make the most money?
Inception (2010) helped Leonardo DiCaprio earn around USD 50 million, which is the highest he has made for acting in a movie.
This story first appeared on Lifestyle Asia India
