Leonardo DiCaprio tells Paul Thomas Anderson that turning down “Boogie Nights ”is his largest remorse

It's been nearly 30 years since Paul Thomas Anderson launched his disco-era porn fantasia Boogie Nights, and Leonardo DiCaprio nonetheless can't recover from not being a part of it.

In a brand new interview for Esquire, the 50-year-old Oscar winner admits to the prolific director that he nonetheless regrets turning down the movie set and shot within the Valley, the place the adult-film business took root.

When requested by Anderson — who interviewed DiCaprio for the outlet whereas selling their upcoming movie, One Battle After One other — if he has any regrets over his 35+ years within the leisure business, the actor doesn't maintain again his fact "regardless that you're right here."

"My largest remorse just isn’t doing Boogie Nights. It was a profound film of my era," DiCaprio responded. "I can't think about anybody however Mark [Wahlberg] in it. Once I lastly bought to see that film, I simply thought it was a masterpiece."

He added, "It's ironic that you just're the particular person asking that query, however it's true."

Wahlberg performed porn star Dirk Diggler in Anderson's 1997 movie, which earned him a Display screen Actors Guild nomination for greatest ensemble alongside Burt Reynolds and Julianne Moore. The actor's function in Boogie Nights stays a formative a part of Wahlberg's appearing profession, because it basically put him on the map within the business when he transitioned into appearing after his rap profession.

It isn't the primary time DiCaprio has revealed this specific remorse, however it's the primary time he's instructed Anderson that to his face. In an interview again in 2008, he revealed that he turned down a job in Boogie Nights to guide Titanic. After all, the James Cameron helmed movie launched DiCaprio's profession into the stratosphere, so some would say he made the precise alternative.

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At the moment, DiCaprio couldn't say he would have moderately completed Anderson's movie as a substitute of Titanic, however he was adamant that he would have liked to have "completed them each."

"I'm not saying I’d have. However it might have been a distinct route, careerwise…I’d have been pleased to do them each," he defined. "And the reality is, if I'd not completed Titanic, I wouldn't be capable to do the sorts of motion pictures or have the profession I’ve now, for positive. However it might have been attention-grabbing to see if I had gone the opposite method."

Whereas DiCaprio missed his probability to work with Anderson again within the '90s, he isn't lacking his shot now.

The Killers of the Flower Moon star leads a star-studded ensemble solid within the motion thriller movie as Bob Ferguson, a former revolutionary who’s being hunted by Sean Penn's police character, Steven Lockjaw, and should reunite along with his ex-revolutionaries after his daughter, performed by Chase Infiniti, is taken.

"I do know One Battle After One other has been in your desk for a very long time," DiCaprio instructed Anderson. "It was a private story for you in a variety of methods and positively pertinent to the world that we're residing in proper now. However in the end, wanting to do that film was fairly easy: I've been eager to work with you — Paul — for one thing like twenty years now, and I liked this concept of the washed-up revolutionary making an attempt to erase his previous and disappear and attempt to dwell some type of regular life elevating his daughter."

One Battle After One other additionally stars Teyana Taylor as Perfidia Beverly Hills, Bob's former lover and the mom of his daughter, Benicio del Toro, Wooden Harris, Alana Haim and Regina Corridor. Within the movie's trailer, Perfidia is apprehended by regulation enforcement previous to the beginning of the film's occasions, leaving Bob and Willa (Infiniti) to go on the run and search refuge with an ally, Sensei Sergio (del Toro).

DiCaprio beforehand described One Battle After One other as "an extremely epic film [that] has such scope and scale" when he appeared at CinemaCon 2025 in April to tease the movie.

He went on to reward Anderson as a "grasp" who’s open to permitting his actors to improvise.

"Numerous writer-directors are extremely inflexible, however his potential to work with actors is so distinctive," DiCpairo mentioned, calling it an "honor" to work with the filmmaker.

One Battle After One other premieres in theaters Sept. 26.

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