• Often appears in the films of Martin Scorsese

• Plays conflicted, tortured-by-their-own-demons characters, who need to deal with their past. (Gangs of New York, The Aviator, The Departed, Shutter Island, Inception)

• While filming The Beach (2000) off the coast of Thailand, Leonardo and others were swept off a camera boat by strong winds and waves. No one was injured. [16 April 1999]

• His first publicity spot was about MILK.

• Sues Playgirl magazine over plans to publish pictures — including full frontal nudity — of himself. [March 1998]

• Ranked #75 in Empire (UK) magazine’s “The Top 100 Movie Stars of All Time” list. [October 1997]

• Chosen by People Magazine as one of the “50 Most Beautiful People in the World.” [1997]

• Was considering starring in a movie about actor James Dean but turned down the role because he felt he wasn’t experienced enough to do the film. [1996]

• Screen tested for the part of Robin in Batman Forever (1995).

• Chosen by People Magazine as one of the “50 Most Beautiful People in the World.” [1998]

• Attended John Marshall High School in Los Angeles, California.

• Younger stepbrother of Adam Farrar.

• He and his family funded a state-of-the-art computer center at the Los Feliz branch of the Los Angeles Public Library, which was rebuilt after the 1994 Northridge earthquake.

• A Manhattan appeals court decided to go ahead with a $45 million lawsuit against DiCaprio by actor and screenwriter Roger Wilson for allegedly encouraging his friends in a street fight with Wilson over advances DiCaprio’s friends made toward Wilson’s girlfriend, Elizabeth Berkley. [2000]

• At age 10, his agent advised him to change his name to a more American-friendly Lenny Williams. Needless to say, he did not follow that advice.

• Was initially set to star as Alan Jensen in Harvard Man (2001), but the film’s low budget could not afford to pay his salary, so he dropped out and Adrian Grenier took the lead.

• Was set to star in American Psycho (2000) but had to drop it due to scheduling conflicts. Christian Bale took the part instead.

• In January 1999, his lawyers filed an application to allow DiCaprio to copyright his own name.

• Attended Los Angeles Center for Enriched Studies before attending Marshall High.

• Attended Seeds Elementary School at UCLA where he took summer courses in performance art.

• Ranked #42 in Premiere’s 2003 annual Power 100 List. Had ranked #74 in 2002 and #60 in 2001.

• Ranked #6 in Star TV’s “Top 10 Box Office Stars of the 1990s” (2003).

• Childhood friends with Tobey Maguire and the late Christopher Pettiet.

• When his camera went missing, he offered a substantial reward of many thousands of pounds for its return. [November 2003]

• Openly supported John Kerry in the 2004 election. He went around 11 states and gave 20 speeches about the environment and how the Bush Administration has damaged it.

• Was offered the role of the porn star Dirk Diggler in Boogie Nights (1997) at around the same time as he was offered his role in Titanic (1997). The Dirk Diggler role eventually went to Mark Wahlberg.

• Mentioned in an interview with Katie Couric that while filming The Aviator (2004), it brought back his own obsessive-compulsive disorder that he had as a child. (December 23, 2004).

• Considered for the role of Peter Parker/Spider-Man in Spider-Man (2002).

• Filed police charges after being attacked with a bottle by an animal-rights activist while leaving a nightclub in June 2005. Although the wound was very close to his jugular vein, it was not expected to delay production on his latest movie.

• Won the role of Rimbaud in Total Eclipse (1995) after the death of actor River Phoenix in 1993.

• He can speak a little German.

• Was in a relationship with Gisele Bündchen twice. They began a relationship in May 2002, getting engaged in February 2003, only to break up in June 2003. They reconciled in May 2004, but separated a second time in November 2005.

• Was considered for the role of Anakin Skywalker for Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones (2002). But much to the relief of hardcore Star Wars fans, the role went to Hayden Christensen instead.

• He and Jason Robards received Oscar-nominations for portraying Howard Hughes. Robards played Hughes in Melvin and Howard (1980) and Leonardo played him in The Aviator (2004)

• Was originally cast in The Good Shepherd (2006).

• He and Gisele Bündchen were chosen by People Magazine as the “Most Beatiful Couple in the World”, in 2004.

• Very good friends with actress Kate Winslet and Vincent Gallo.

• He once said that playing Arnie in What’s Eating Gilbert Grape (1993) was “the most fun I’ve ever had”.

• Appeared in the television series Parenthood (1990), in the role originally played by Joaquin Phoenix. In the original film, Phoenix’s grandfather is played by Jason Robards, who, like DiCaprio, has played Howard Hughes.

• He purchased a 104-acre island off the coast of Belize in 2005 and plans to develop a resort with renewable energy sources. Purchase price for the island, Blackadore Caye, was estimated to be $1.75 million.

• Good friends with Lukas Haas, Mark Wahlberg and Kevin Connolly.

• In 2006 in “The Independent”, he named his ten favorite movies as: Bicycle Thieves (1948), Taxi Driver (1976), Lawrence of Arabia (1962), 8½ (1963), The Third Man (1949), Yojimbo (1961), Sunset Blvd. (1950), The Shining (1980) and East of Eden (1955).

• Was cast in the lead role in Baz Luhrmann’s doomed Alexander The Great-project.

• In his childhood, he and his mother lived in poor neighborhoods in Los Angeles which he describes as “Ghettos of Hollywood”.

• Early in his career he appeared as a contestant on a game show called “Fun House” where stunts were performed — his involved trying to catch fish in a small pool with only his teeth.

• Attended the same high school as Bo Barrett, Heidi Fleiss, Anne-Marie Johnson, and Julie Newmar.

• Turned down Michael Pitt’s role in The Dreamers (2003) because he felt he was too old to play a twenty-year-old student.

• Was trained by renowned Hollywood Gun Coach Thell Reed, who has also trained such actors as: Brad Pitt, Val Kilmer, Edward Norton, Russell Crowe, Ben Foster and Girard Swan.

• Has once said his favorite female performance is Gena Rowlands’ Mabel Longhetti in A Woman Under the Influence (1974).

• Has said his two favorite performances are Robert De Niro’s Travis Bickle in Taxi Driver (1976) and James Dean’s Cal Trask in East of Eden (1955).

• Named #36 on Empire Magazine’s 100 Sexiest Movie Stars. [2007]

• Martin Scorsese is his favorite director.

• His German grandmother died at the age of 93 in August 2008.

• Has a Dutch song about him called “Ik ben verliefd op Leonardo DiCaprio/I’m in love with Leonardo DiCaprio” by Flemish girl band K3 (Kathleen Aerts, Karen Damen and Kristel Verbeke).

• His father, George DiCaprio, is of German and Italian descent and is an underground writer, editor and distributor of comic books. His mother, Irmelin DiCaprio, is of German and Russian descent and a former legal secretary.

• In 1994, he became the seventh youngest actor ever to be nominated for an Academy Award for best supporting actor at the age of 19 years. He was nominated for his performance in What’s Eating Gilbert Grape (1993).

• When he was a child, his favorite films were Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory (1971), Watership Down (1978) and Bedknobs and Broomsticks (1971).

• Thanked by Blink 182 in the liner notes of their album “Enema of the State”.

• In May 2009, DiCaprio, along with Kate Winslet and director James Cameron, publicly pledged to support the financial future of the last living Titanic survivor, Millvina Dean, after it was reported that she had been forced to sell her mementos to pay for nursing home bills.

• Bought Kate Winslet an inscribed gold ring, after they finished filming Revolutionary Road (2008) together. The inscription, however, Winslet keeps a secret.

• Campaigned for the role of John Dillinger in Public Enemies (2009), but Johnny Depp was cast in the part instead.

• He stated in a Rolling Stone interview that in his younger years his mother took him to Germany about 10 times to visit his grandmother.

• Quentin Tarantino considered casting Leo as SS Colonel Hans Landa in Inglourious Basterds (2009), but he eventually chose Christoph Waltz to play the role instead.

• Purchased a unit in Manhattan’s new, eco-friendly Riverhouse development in Battery Park, paying $3,665,700. Other real estate holdings include: A 1765-square-foot house on Carbon Beach in Malibu that he purchased in 1998 for $1.6 million. A 2633-square-foot house in the Malibu Colony that he purchased in 2002 for exactly $6 million. A 4551-square-foot house in the Bird Streets area of Los Angeles’ Hollywood Hills that he bought in late 1999 for $2,515,000. A 3980-square-foot house in the Bird Streets area of Los Angeles’ Hollywood Hills (next door to the one mentioned above) that he purchased in the summer of 2003 for $3,780,000. A two-bedroom, 2374-square-foot contemporary-style oceanfront house in Malibu, California that he paid $6.350 million for in 2007. And in Las Vegas, he spent $1.5 million for two adjacent two-bedroom units at Las Vegas’s Panorama Towers in 2004. [2008]

• His favorite actress of all time is Meryl Streep.

• Has been in a relationship with Bar Refaeli twice. They began a relationship in December 2005, but separated in October 2007. However they later reconciled in December 2007 and are still together to the present day.

• In 2008, Leonardo DiCaprio joined a long list of celebrities (such as Jennifer Aniston, Ashton Kutcher, Jamie Foxx, Forest Whitaker and others) in a series of Public Service Announcements to encourage young people to register to vote.

• Leonardo has produced and appeared in a campaign to encourage young voters to vote for the 2008 elections.

• Leonardo was ranked #31 in the VH1 countdown of 100 Greatest Teen Stars in 2006.

• Leo’s childhood pet was a rottweiler named Rocky. He also has a bearded lizard named Blizzard.

• Leonardo’s parents are Irmelin (German American) and George DiCaprio (Italian American). They got divorced when Leo was two years old.

• In March 2007, Shimon Peres, the Israeli Vice Premier, invited Leo and Bar Refaeli and asked for his help in promoting the peace process in the Middle East and to continue his environmental protection campaign.

• In 2006, he produced, co-wrote and partly narrated on screen his environmental documentary, The 11th Hour (2007).

• In 2005, he created his second spoken word piece entitled Water Planet.

• In 2003, at The Russian International Film Festival, he was awarded the Tower Award for Contributions to International Cinema.

• In August 2002, he joined Global Green USA.

• In 1998, he donated a room full of computers and equipment to the new Los Feliz Library, built on the site of his childhood home.

• Before he signed on to star in James Cameron’s Titanic, he admitted that he was hesitant at first since this wasn’t the kind of film he had told himself he wanted to make.

• A the age of 14, he appeared in a series of commercials and educational films.

• In 2002, his Foundation received the Martin Litton Environmental Warrior Award from Environment Now.

• He received the Environmental Leadership Award from Global Green USA.

• He created a spoken word piece entitled Global Warning. It’s about Global Warming and Climate Change.

• In 2005, he purchased a 104-acre island off the coast of Belize.

• In March 2007, Israeli police arrested two members of Leonardo’s security team after they fought with photographers during a visit to Jerusalem by Leonardo and his girlfriend, Bar Refaeli. While Leonardo and Bar were taking a private tour of the Western Wall tunnels, photographers waited for them to emerge. A fight broke out between the photographers and Leonardo’s minders.

• Leonardo has “adopted” a South African baby girl. He met the girl in an orphanage in South Africa while he was filming Blood Diamond. Leonardo won’t be taking the child home with him, instead, he will continue checking on her progress by chatting to her over the phone and will send her a monthly cheque.

• Leonardo received a 2007 Oscar Nomination for Best Actor for his role in Blood Diamond.

• Leonardo was nominated for 2 Screen Actors Guild Awards (2006-2007), for his leading role in Blood Diamond and his supporting role in The Departed.

• Leonardo was required to master a Zimbabwean accent for his role in Blood Diamond, but initially sounded more like an Australian than a Zimbabwean. A dialect coach helped him reach his goal.

• Leonardo is a very private person, feeling that if his audience knows too much about his personal life, they will not believe him in his character roles. To achieve a long career as an actor, he feels he must guard his privacy.

• Leonardo likes to play basketball, hockey, football, rollerblade, and go surfing.

• Leonardo’s favorite director to work with is hands-down, Martin Scorcesse. Listing him as a genius at his trade, and noting that he has seen almost every film made up to the 1980′s, and uses them for inspiration.

• Leonardo’s past girlfriends include: Bijou Phillips, Bridget Hall, Alicia Silverstone, Liv Tyler and Kristen Zang.

• Leonardo appeared on the children’s show Romper Room when he was three years old, and was reprimanded for his out-of-control behavior repeatedly.

• One thing Leonardo remembers about his childhood is the pranks he played in his neighborhood.

• Leonardo was about 21 when they were filming Titanic.

• Leonardo’s first on-screen kiss was with Claire Danes.

• Leonardo had obsessive compulsive disorder as a child.

• Leonardo has a French Bulldog.

• Leonardo almost died in a skydiving accident.

• Wears a size 11 shoe.