Four-time Oscar nominee Leonardo DiCaprio has made the most challenging film of his 20-odd-year career: The Revenant. At a Q&A following a screening of The Revenant Monday night at the Academy’s Samuel Goldwyn Theatre in Beverly Hills, California, DiCaprio called the film, which was filmed in extreme -30 degree temperature, "the most difficult film, I think, that any of us have ever done."
According to Variety, DiCaprio said the film and his almost "silent-movie performance" required a lot of rehearsal. Although his performance is largely silent, with a direct plot, DiCaprio said, "We wanted to find the poetry." Besides filming being difficult because of weather conditions it was difficult because they only had 90 minutes each day in the "beautiful, illustrious Chivo light," DiCaprio said, a reference to director of photography Emmanuel Lubezki (Birdman).
The Revenant's Oscar-winning director Alejandro González Iñarritu (Birdman) added that there were difficult single takes that took minutes at a time, made even worse by the weather. "Conditions were against us all the time," he said.
The film sees DiCaprio's character Hugh Glass is an explorer who gets attacked by a bear and is left for dead by his crew, who BTW also kill his son, sending Glass on a quest for revenge.
Watch DiCaprio find the poetry in The Revenant when it premieres Dec. 25.
