Despite DiCaprio’s interest in playing historical figures, he dropped out of a Danny Boyle directed biopic about Steve Jobs, adapted from the biography “Steve Jobs” by Walter Isaacson in 2014. The Hollywood Reporter reported that “after DiCaprio finishes ‘The Revenant’ … he plans to take a lengthy break from acting.” Michael Fassbender was eventually cast as “Steve Jobs,” and the film came out the same year as “The Revenant.”
Considering how grueling filming director Alejandro González Iñárritu’s “The Revenant” was, DiCaprio’s decision to take a break was probably necessary. The film required the entire crew to travel to frigid and remote, high elevation locations over a nine-month period and was characterized as “A living hell,” in order to tell the story of a real man who survived a bear attack and being abandoned in the wilderness, before crawling back to civilization. The actor told Wired, “Every single day of this movie was difficult. It was the most difficult film I’ve ever done.”
When DiCaprio finally won an Oscar, after four previous nominations, for his performance in this epic film about fur trapper Hugh Glass, DiCaprio’s mysterious role selection process once again proved to be auspicious. If DiCaprio has a talent other than acting, it is in evaluating potential projects and discerning which project to join.