After Titanic, Leonardo DiCaprio rarely took roles where he would have much interaction with women. Sure, he’s made movies where he’s got a wife or girlfriend or love interest, but for an actor who has been a movie star for nearly 30 years, it’s weird that his CV is so light on romantic dramas or “acting opposite a woman for any length of time.” What’s even weirder is that… Leo is actually good at on-screen romance. He’s a good enough actor to pull off “chemistry” with anyone. I was reminded of that as I read British Vogue’s cover story with Leo and Lily Gladstone, the stars of Killers of the Flower Moon. They play a married couple and Lily is getting so much buzz, but so is Leo. They have a lot of scenes together and, as Vogue emphasizes, they have an easy chemistry. Vogue even notes, “The pair are relaxed together, sibling-like almost – he the older brother, protective and very, very proud.” Some highlights:

Leo on Lily: “Lily is absolutely astonishing in this movie. She carries the entire film and the story. There was no reading,” DiCaprio recalls of his and Scorsese’s first meeting with Gladstone over Zoom. “Marty just instinctively knew Lily was the one.” He turns to Gladstone. “There was a truthfulness in your eyes that he saw even over a computer screen. I’ve never known [Scorsese] meet somebody and then immediately afterwards have this gravitational pull and instinct to say, ‘Let’s not wait another minute.’”

Gladstone on getting cast: “I was living at home with my parents. I thought, I don’t want to move to LA, because I’m kind of an atypical actor. I think it’s going to be hard for me to find a place if I take that route.”

The Reign of Terror. “It’s a completely forgotten part of American history,” says DiCaprio. “And an open wound that still festers.” “It’s not that long ago that the Reign of Terror happened,” Gladstone agrees. “I don’t want to label this a western. I’m happy that it’s being labelled a tragedy.”

Gladstone’s background: The authenticity of Gladstone’s performance can be attributed in part, though not entirely, to her heritage. While she is Native, she is not Osage. On her mother’s side, she is descended from the first cousin of the British prime minister William Gladstone (whose family were so deeply involved in colonial projects, his descendants recently travelled to South America to apologise for their role in enslaving Africans); on her father’s side, she is the direct descendant of Blackfeet Chief Red Crow, one of the Great Plains leaders. It was this ancestor who in 1877 entered into a famous treaty with the British Crown. In 1977, Gladstone’s family received a surprising new honorary member, His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales, then visiting Canada on behalf of the Crown. “When Prince Charles was given a Blood name, he was given my grandmother’s name,” Gladstone explains. “I have mixed feelings about that.”

On the Native pan-cultural experience: “My cultural understanding is more shaped by Blackfeet, because that’s the reservation I was raised on,” Gladstone says. “There’s a bit of a pan-cultural understanding that Native people hav. But there’s incredible diversity within Indian country.” After all, there are presently more than “560 federally recognised nations and another several hundred that are not federally recognised”.

Leo stayed in Tulsa while they filmed: DiCaprio stayed in nearby Tulsa, “back and forth” between the city and Osage County, he says. While he was there, he witnessed the centenary anniversary of the Tulsa Race Massacre. “It was a complete coincidence, to be there exactly 100 years after the start of the Osage Reign of Terror and 100 years after the first murder of the Black Wall Street massacre happened in Tulsa. There were news cameras everywhere, people on the streets talking about it. It was very important to me to realise these were two sides of the same coin… people of colour that were independently wealthy amid a massive population of incredibly racist white people who want to extract those resources at any cost. Look at Standing Rock. Look at what’s going on in Indonesia, in the Amazon. These places that are home to incredible resources are also places that are most drenched in blood.”

Gladstone on ‘Killers’ being directed by a white man. “Nobody is going to hand an Osage filmmaker $200 million. There’s a level of allyship that’s absolutely necessary.”

[From British Vogue]

I loved this piece, honestly. Lily had space to talk and it felt like Leo agreed to the cover just to hype Lily. I mean, I’m sure he has his own Oscar campaign strategy, of course, I’m not naive. But what I’m saying is that his strategy of using his fame and his name to hype Lily is a great one. That seems to be what Marty Scorsese wants too – while Marty and Leo are giving interviews to support the film, they’re also platforming Lily and Native American communities. It’s working, I can’t wait to see this.

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Covers & IG courtesy of British Vogue.