As we discussed yesterday, the producers backing The Revenant have hired ALL of the Oscar campaign consultants they can get their hands on. Which may explain why Leonardo DiCaprio seems more than happy to make some uncharacteristically industry-friendly appearances lately, plus he’s already doing some advanced media on behalf of the film and it’s not even coming out until the end of December/early January. Leo has a new interview with Yahoo Movies and he’s trying to SO HARD to strike that perfect balance of talking up the movie, letting everyone know how hard it was AND not seeming too eager for an Oscar. Poor Leo!

Whether the bear attack in the film is CGI: “Well, I’m not going to give any specifics on how we did it — you’ll figure it out on your own. But I will tell you it involved cables, it involved me flying around the forest, and it involved a tremendous amount of rehearsal. And it was pretty agonizing to do.”

Whether the epic nine-month shoot broke him: “The truth is that I knew what I was getting into. This was a film that had been floating around for quite some time, but nobody was crazy enough to really take this on, simply because of the logistics of where we needed to shoot and the amount of work and rehearsal that would have to be done…It’s epic poetry, an existential journey through nature, and this man finding a will to live against all odds. Yet he changes, nature changes him and I think those elements changed him while we were doing the movie.”

The most difficult work he’s ever done: “I can name 30 or 40 sequences that were some of the most difficult things I’ve ever had to do. Whether it’s going in and out of frozen rivers, or sleeping in animal carcasses, or what I ate on set. [I was] enduring freezing cold and possible hypothermia constantly.”

He really ate raw bison liver? “I certainly don’t eat raw bison liver on a regular basis. When you see the movie, you’ll see my reaction to it, because Alejandro kept it in. It says it all. It was an instinctive reaction.”

Whether the reports on off-screen chaos are true: “Look, what we were trying to pull off was so incredibly ambitious, and [Alejandro] is vigilant and incredibly specific about what he wants up on screen, and he won’t accept anything less. So along the way, if we had departments that didn’t agree or departments that didn’t work correctly with the situation … I wasn’t privy to exactly what went on. But to me, most of the people were there working incredibly hard, and they should be given due credit for the effort they gave this movie. Because everyone I saw was giving their heart and soul to pursuing his vision.

He worries about the glut of superhero movies: “I do. I put a lot of thought into that, actually, because The Revenant is a film that is so incredibly unique. It’s a very linear and simple story, but it doesn’t have all the formulaic plot points [found in] a lot of films have coming out of the studio system. What’s interesting to watch, as television becoming that much better, I think a lot of these stories are going to be going toward television. Television is better than it’s ever been in history. A lot of stories are being pushed — because of how complicated they are to make —toward Netflix and other channels on cable. But we’re going to see whether or not movies like this can survive anymore. It’s like the Last of the Mohicans — these type of movies. I don’t know if [these kinds of films] going to get financed anymore. So all I can do as a lover of film is, when I see these opportunities, to jump on them. [They’re] maybe a dying breed.

He’s not mad that The Revenant will compete with Star Wars: “There’s always room at the top. I’m going to be in line for Star Wars as well. What’s great about this time of year is, as you know, they save the best for last in most cases. And hopefully, it just means more people are excited to go to the movies. I think that people know this time of year is where a lot of great pieces of art are going to come out. I would never think that we’d be able to compete with Star Wars — that’s something that’s embedded in our cultural DNA. But I think when people begin to hear about this movie, they’ll want to go see it. And that’s all we can hope for.

[From Yahoo]

He says several versions of “this was the most difficult project I’ve ever undertaken.” I believe he’s telling the truth, first of all, because everything that I’ve read about this production makes it sound like the worst work environment ever. But I think Leo has another motive for talking about it: he’s going to be waging the “transformation/physically exhausting” campaign. Like, Matthew McConaughey losing all of that weight for Dallas Buyers Club. Like Tom Hanks’ transformations for Philadelphia and Cast Away. Like Eddie Redmayne in The Theory of Everything. Like Christian Bale and Daniel Day Lewis in most of their films. Leo is letting the Academy know that despite what Eddie Redmayne has got going with The Danish Girl, Leo is the one who did the exhausting toil and heavy transformation required to win an Oscar this year.

Also: to give him credit, on those rare occasions when Leo does press, he’s always pretty good at it. I enjoy the fact that he’s all “yeah, I’m going to see Star Wars, of course!”

Photos courtesy of WENN, Getty.