"This sitting with Leonardo DiCaprio for Interview Magazine was a revelation to me. Few people have the capacity to accomplish such remarkable transformations in front of the camera.
One minute he looked like a kid from a small town lost in Coney Island, the next a small-time thug on the run from the police, the next a cocky carnival hustler type. He jumped from one character to another faster than I could load my Pentax. A total chameleon-pathos, then toughness in his eyes from one moment to the next.
I could have gone on photographing Leonardo forever. I took this photograph in 1994, and I've been kind of angry with him ever since, because he totally spoiled the experience of photographing every big actor after that.
I know that Leonardo will probably never take pictures like this again, because of course he doesn't have any need to. I ran into him a couple years ago at an event and he said, "You haven't photographed me in a long time-how come?" I laughed and said, "Because all you'll ever wear in pictures now is an Armani suit!" "That's true," he admitted. I was lucky enough to be there before all of that, and I'll always have a great tenderness for Leonardo as a person and a great artist for that madcap day we spent in Coney Island years ago."
Bruce Weber
25 October 2022
