Leonardo DiCaprio and Martin Scorsese have had a good thing going ever since they first worked together on 2002’s Gangs of New York. The duo have teamed up on seven feature films and have more lined up, so needless to say that these men know each quite well. So when DiCaprio offers advice about working with Scorsese that sounds like it came from 1999, you better heed it, no matter how archaic it sounds.
DiCaprio, star of the 2025 movie release One Battle After Another, shared this advice while speaking with Jennifer Lawrence, who starred this year in Die My Love, as part of Variety’s Actors on Actors series. The two actors previously worked together on the Netflix subscription-exclusive Don’t Look Up, and they’ll reunite under the supervision of Martin Scorsese for the film adaptation of the Peter Cameron-penned novel What Happens at Night. This will be Lawrence’s first time working with Scorsese, so when she asked DiCaprio what she should know about the filmmaker ahead of time, he answered:
He’s going to give you a lot of film references. They usually come in the form of a DVD. And if you don’t have a DVD player, get one.... He’ll have screenings sometimes for just one sequence in a movie. If there’s something that he wants you to capture from an old film or the pacing of something, you might have a screening of a whole film just for a specific scene that he wants to see. We might see some Japanese ghost films for reference, just to get the tone of it. You’re going to have an amazing time.
Look, Martin Scorsese is 83 years old and has been making movies for nearly 60 years, starting with 1967’s Who’s That Knocking at My Door. I’m not surprised if he’s not subscribed to any of the best streaming services; the man’s entitled to watch movies however he wants, so all power to him for still using DVDs. At least they’re still being sold, unlike VHS tapes. Maybe he’s like Christopher Walken and has special DVDs sent to him so he can watch stream-exclusive content.
It’d be great to be in Jennifer Lawrence’s position, as I’d welcome getting a first row seat to Martin Scorsese going over his film references and gladly break out my old DVD player. Who knows, depending on how What Happens at Night turns out, maybe this will lead to the actress and director collaborating again, whether or not Leonardo DiCaprio is involved. It’s also worth mentioning that DiCaprio will also work with Scorsese again, this time alongside Dwayne Johnson and Emily Blunt, in an untitled movie that follows organized crime in Hawaii.
DiCaprio and Lawrence have both earned Golden Globe nominations for the respective performances in One Battle After Another and Die My Love. Find out how they do when the awards ceremony airs on the 2026 TV schedule January 11th on both CBS and Paramount+.
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