Home >  A & E >  Movies/Videos

Sunday, December 22, 2002

By Ron Weiskind, Post-Gazette Movie Editor

NEW YORK -- Leonardo DiCaprio was talking about Frank Abagnale, the real-life former teenage con man he portrays in the new movie "Catch Me If You Can."

"What I really wanted to know," DiCaprio said, "was how he operated, how he had this magnetism, and how he was so convincing and how he engaged people."

Funny, you'd think Leo would be giving pointers on those very subjects. But the noted party animal, "Titanic" heartthrob and -- oh, yes -- skilled actor saw his past two films flop. After a while, one tired of reading about his posse as he dithered over film roles, and tales of his alleged party excesses didn't make him seem so engaging. For that matter, he showed up late for this interview.

But DiCaprio's back on screen with a vengeance, in two films debuting within days of each other.

Martin Scorsese's long-awaited "Gangs of New York," a violent epic about Manhattan street wars set in the Civil War years, opened Friday. "Catch Me If You Can," directed by Steven Spielberg, opens on Christmas Day. It's a caper film with a dark edge, about a young hustler who passed bad checks and fooled people into thinking he was an airline pilot, a doctor and a lawyer.

"He has a way of drawing you in and making you feel at ease with him and trust him, unlike anyone I've ever met. He seems as innocent as a schoolteacher.

"He was one of the greatest actors around, but his stage was the real world. He was like a chameleon. He was able to adapt to these environments seamlessly, without having any flaws," DiCaprio said.

And what does that say about actors?

"I suppose we all are con artists, yeah," he admitted.

DiCaprio invited the real Frank Abagnale, now 54 and a consultant who helps prevent the kind of cons he once pulled, to stay at the actor's house for a few days so that DiCaprio could study his movements and ask questions about his exploits.

But DiCaprio doesn't profess to know all the answers.

"Some of the cons that he pulls off are so outlandish and almost so obvious and so on the nose -- is this guy testing how smart he is or is he testing his abilities or is he almost wanting to get caught? I think ultimately Frank did what he did because he could and he had the ability to. In talking to the real Frank, I don't think at any point he wanted to get caught. But if he was smart enough to pull off what he pulled off, he was also smart enough to know that eventually it was all going to catch up to him."

DiCaprio views the movie as a coming-of-age story, the tale of "a young man thrown out into the real world and he's very much striving for something that he knows he has a limited time with, and he's constantly testing the boundaries of rules and structures of society around him." DiCaprio should be able to relate.

Both "Gangs of New York" and "Catch Me If You Can" cast him as a young man searching for revenge (in Frank's case, against the people who wouldn't help his father, portrayed by Christopher Walken, in his time of financial distress). Both characters also find a father figure in the man who happens to be his chief adversary. In "Catch Me," that would be the FBI agent on Frank's trail, Carl Hanratty, portrayed by Tom Hanks.

"It's the only person he can truly be honest with about who he is, and have any kind of conversation based on fact. His father is living in his own sort of world -- it's a fantasy world," DiCaprio said. "With everyone else in his entire life, the relationship is entirely based on lies."

He professed admiration for both of his male co-stars.

Walken really bowled him over in a scene that calls for the veteran actor to break up over the dissolution of his marriage.

"I thought that the man was having a heart attack before my eyes. I actually was going to ask for Steven to stop and I wanted to cut the scene because he was having such an emotional breakdown. I didn't know he was doing it for the movie. He just started gasping. It was one of the most shocking and exhilarating experiences I had working with another actor."

Hanks, he said, is "the consummate pro. There is nothing I can say bad about that man. ... He is not only a fantastic, unbelievable actor but he is also that nice to people on the set all the way down to the caterer and the grips. He's extremely personable and there's no ego involved in his work."

Conversely, two-time Oscar winner Hanks said he had no preconceptions about his precocious young co-star.

"I think Leo lived up to my expectations. Having seen him in 'What's Eating Gilbert Grape?' and everything, I said, 'I'll bet he's a really concentrated, serious guy who takes his job quite seriously but is not a jerk. And I was right."

DiCaprio celebrated his 28th birthday last month. At that age, Hanks said, "I was a geek and a spaz. He's Leonardo DiCaprio."

Carl Hanratty is kind of a geek himself, an intense FBI man in eyeglasses and an unflattering '60s haircut who tends to rush in where wise men know better than to tread. At one point in the movie, he catches up to Abagnale, who convinces Hanratty that he's a Secret Service agent.

"He views himself as the most important man in the history of bank fraud. No one knows bank fraud better than he does, and it's the crime of the century. And lo and behold, he comes across somebody who's better at it than he is -- and he's half his age.

"He's such a lonely guy, and ultimately he has such an empty life, he recognizes a kindred spirit when he sees one."

Hanks gets a fair share of humorous moments in this movie -- enough to remind us of his origins as a comic actor. But he's not looking to get back into the genre.

"Look at the nature of comedic movies that come out of the studios right now," he said, noting that he isn't anxious to do a teenage slob comedy or a parody. "If I see one more spoof, I swear I'm going to choke," he said.

He was happy that, for once, he didn't have to do most of the heavy lifting in "Catch Me," leaving the bulk of the film to DiCaprio.

"It does wear you down," he said, remembering the ordeal of "Cast Away," in which he was the only actor appearing in the movie during the long stretch in which his character is marooned on a remote island. "A lot of the joy of being an actor is the give and take and being part of the ensemble."

And now he's a producer with the year's most unexpected hit to his credit: "My Big Fat Greek Wedding."

"There's nothing else like it in the marketplace. It's even the kind of entertainment that the television networks don't do anymore. It's completely gone. It's vanished.

"The audience is looking for something new that they haven't seen for a while and they can't get anywhere else. You can't stop them from showing up to see the movie, no matter how many ads for 'The Scorpion King' they run."

When it comes to the audience's favorite movie actors, Hanks is Hollywood's real rock.