Leonardo DiCaprio called the traumatized World War II veteran he plays in the latest Martin Scorsese film the most demanding role he has done for the director, ahead of its world premiere Saturday.
Oscar-winner Scorsese and his favorite actor teamed up again for the psychological thriller Shutter Island – the pair s fourth collaboration, which is appearing out of competition at the 60th Berlin Film Festival.
Asked at a press conference ahead of the gala launch of the film what was the most challenging role he had played for Scorsese, DiCaprio said probably this one .
It is a fascinating character study of how a human being deals with extreme trauma, he said.
DiCaprio said he had come into his own as an actor through his work over the last decade with the Hollywood legend behind Raging Bull and Taxi Driver , calling him the definitive director of our time .
Any actor would be a fool not to jump at the opportunity to work with Mr Martin Scorsese, said DiCaprio, 35, who first acted for the director in Gangs of New York . He said he would only have his fingers crossed to act for him again.
He s got this infectious love of cinema and it rubs off on everyone on the set. We share the same tastes – we have the same kind of commitment to make the best possible film we can.
Scorsese, 67, had not released a feature film since 2006 s The Departed , also starring DiCaprio, which won him the best directing Oscar – the first of his four-decade-long career.
Shutter Island is based on a 2003 mystery novel of the same name by Dennis Lehane, whose work has also been adapted by Clint Eastwood ( Mystic River ) and Ben Affleck ( Gone, Baby, Gone ).
The film, which drew lengthy applause at a press preview, follows two US marshals in 1950s Massachusetts pursuing a missing psychiatric patient on Boston Harbor s Shutter Island.
One of the lawmen, played by DiCaprio, has returned from World War II where he participated in the liberation of the Nazi concentration camp of Dachau – an experience that left deep psychological scars.
When a hurricane hits the area, the marshals are stranded on the island, home to a hospital for the criminally insane.
Scorsese said he had taken inspiration from watching DiCaprio grow as an actor since his breakout role in 1993 s What s Eating Gilbert Grape .
As he s maturing as a person, that life is being channeled into the actual work, he said. Scorsese said the trust factor with the actor had allowed him to be able to focus that and perfect that and be part of that process.
The premiere was scheduled one day after fellow veteran director Roman Polanski returned to the big screen with The Ghost Writer , which also drew praise from critics.
Shutter Island also stars Ben Kingsley, Mark Ruffalo, Max von Sydow and Michelle Williams.
The film had been kept under close wraps until its premiere but sneak previews granted to a handful of critics have garnered rich praise.
It’s a true oddity, an outlier, as isolated and enigmatic as the gloomy, rain-whipped island on which the action takes place, the New York Times wrote this month.
The hero, a federal marshal named Teddy Daniels, is a tormented soul, the type of man to whom Mr Scorsese has never been a stranger.
The Berlin Film Festival runs until Feb. 21.
