Hollywood star Leonardo DiCaprio almost entered the acting world with a completely different name. It turns out his first agent thought “Leonardo DiCaprio” sounded too “ethnic” for Tinseltown. The now 50-year-old actor recently shared this wild story.
DiCaprio appeared on the “New Heights” podcast with brothers Travis and Jason Kelce on Wednesday, September 24. He recalled a “holy sh*t” moment from his early career. When he was just 12 or 13, his agent told him his name was a problem. “I ask them, ‘What about Leonardo DiCaprio?'” he remembered. “They tell me, ‘No, too ethnic. They’re never going to hire you.'”
The agent then gave young Leo a new name. “‘Your new name is Lenny Williams,'” DiCaprio recalled the agent saying. “I asked, ‘What is Lenny?’… ‘We took your middle name [Wilhelm] and made it your [last name]. Now you’re Lenny.'”
However, his father, George DiCaprio, who is an artist and writer, wasn’t having any of it. “My father saw their picture, tore it up, and said, ‘Over my dead body,'” the star of ‘The Wolf of Wall Street’ continued.
Jason, 37, and Travis, 35, joked about what name their next podcast guest, Benicio Del Toro, might have been given. “Benny Dell?” Jason teased. “This podcast wouldn’t be the same with Lenny Williams and Benny Dell. I’m telling you right now. That WWE intro wouldn’t sound the same.”
Leonardo DiCaprio, 1993 Ron Galella, Ltd./Ron Galella Collection via Getty Images
The name DiCaprio has Italian roots. However, Leonardo also has a lot of German heritage. George, 81, and Leonardo’s mother, Irmelin Indenbirken, 82, a German legal secretary, chose his name in honor of Leonardo da Vinci. When Irmelin was pregnant, she felt the baby kick while admiring one of da Vinci’s paintings at the Uffizi museum in Florence, Italy. “My father took it as a sign, and I guess DiCaprio wasn’t too far from da Vinci,” DiCaprio told NPR in 2014. “So, as an artist he is, my father said, ‘That’s our son’s name.'”
DiCaprio found success in 1993 with films like ‘This Boy’s Life’ and ‘What’s Eating Gilbert Grape,’ all without changing his name. Still, he revealed on “New Heights” that getting his start was tough. “I remember auditioning when I was very young. I was like a child actor,” the ‘Titanic’ star shared. “My stepbrother was an actor, and there were casting agents who lined you up like cattle. I was a breakdancer. Sometimes I would breakdance for money on the street. Oh, yeah. I had the step haircut.”
He recalled watching other breakdancers land roles while he was rejected. He noticed they had agents. “I remember telling my dad, ‘This is awful.’ I went back, and they did it again,” he continued. “‘Yes. Yes. No. No.’ I just remember my dad telling me, ‘Your time will come someday, son. Keep trying. Keep trying.'”
You can watch the full “New Heights” podcast episode here.