
Leonardo DiCaprio Samir Hussein/WireImage
Leonardo DiCaprio performs Ernest Burkhart within the upcoming crime drama Killers of the Flower Moon, however he was initially purported to painting a distinct position within the movie.
DiCaprio, 48, was initially forged to play Bureau of Investigation agent Tom White in an earlier model of the film, which was extra centered on the crime plot line. His earlier position nonetheless seems within the movie — performed by Jesse Plemons — however DiCaprio and director Martin Scorsese realized that the venture wanted to carry Lily Gladstone’s character, Ernest’s spouse, Mollie Burkhart, to the forefront as a substitute.
“It simply didn’t really feel prefer it bought to the guts of it,” DiCaprio stated throughout a joint interview with Gladstone, 37, for British Vogue revealed on Tuesday, September 19. The actor defined that the early model of the movie was lacking the Osage perspective regardless of telling the true story of the homicide of 60 or extra Osage Native People that passed off in Osage County, Oklahoma, between 1918 and 1931.
DiCaprio continued: “We weren’t immersed within the Osage story. There was this tiny, small scene between Mollie [who is Osage] and Ernest that provoked such emotion in us on the studying, and we simply began to penetrate into what that relationship was, as a result of it was so twisted and weird and in contrast to something I’ve ever skilled earlier than.”
In Killers of the Flower Moon, DiCaprio and Gladstone play married couple Ernest and Mollie. Ernest marries Mollie at his uncle Invoice Hale’s (Robert De Niro) suggestion. Ernest and Invoice then plan the systematic homicide of Mollie’s household to acquire their “headrights,” which offered them with annual royalties for the oil-rich land they owned.

Robert De Niro, Leonardo DiCaprio. Melinda Sue Gordon/Apple TV+
DiCaprio known as the harrowing story “a very forgotten a part of American historical past and an open wound that also festers.” Gladstone, who’s a direct descendant of the Blackfeet Chief Pink Crow, identified that the occasions that impressed the movie occurred “not that way back.”
She added: “I don’t wish to label this a western. I’m glad that it’s being labeled a tragedy.”
DiCaprio sang his costar’s praises throughout the interview, recalling how Scorsese, 80, knew he needed to forged Gladstone after assembly her through Zoom.
“There was no studying. … Marty simply instinctively knew Lily was the one,” the Oscar winner stated, noting that there was a “truthfulness in [Lily’s] eyes” that got here via “even over a pc scene.”
DiCaprio additionally gushed about Gladstone’s “completely astonishing” efficiency within the movie. “She carries your entire movie and the story,” he stated.
Along with centering an Osage character’s perspective within the movie, the Killers of the Flower Moon crew needed to collaborate with the real-world Osage neighborhood. Geoffrey Standing Bear, the Principal Chief of the Osage Nation, has totally endorsed the venture.
“All these folks labored so exhausting with our folks. … It was simply superb to see,” Chief Standing Bear informed British Vogue. “I simply did a groundbreaking [a traditional ceremony celebrating the first day of construction] for some aged housing this morning. I used some Osage phrases and I stated, ‘Now I need us all to attempt to converse pretty much as good Osage as Robert De Niro.’”
Killers of the Flower Moon hits theaters on October 20, 2023.



