Leonardo DiCaprio - (Please Read First Post Prior to Posting)

[by_princess]

Wijn

Yes, please try to think of questions that are not XXX rated

Oxford You totally ruined it for her!!!

[katchitup]

Princess: a Little off topic, but where is your siggi of Barbara from?

Ox ANDD FASH sent you both a PM!

[by_princess]

'J. Edgar' Q&A: Leonardo DiCaprio

The star on playing a mama's boy and anticipating "Titanic 3D."

This story originally appeared in the Nov. 11 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine.

What drew you to Hoover?

How incredibly mysterious he was. The more I researched, the more intrigued I became. I don't think you could ever know everything about him, but I felt I understood what drove him.

Which was what?

His mother. She was this really intense stage mom who wanted her son to have great glory. He lived with her until he was 40 years old; his father wasn't present in a major way and was mentally ill toward the end of his life -- I think he was manic depressive and unable to really function. Even when Hoover was under great criticism, she was always there to be his guiding force.

Who gave you the most insight into Hoover?

The only remaining man that worked with him, [former FBI deputy director] Deke DeLoach. I spent a day with him. I wanted to know what kind of personality [Hoover] had on a social level, how he held his hands, how he would fly at people, how he conducted his work at the office -- all those minute details that only somebody who knew him for a long time could answer.

Did you reach any conclusions about his sexuality?

No one knows the answer. What this film is trying to portray is that, whatever he felt, he was not able to live out his personal life in a way that allowed him to love and be loved. But what you cannot doubt is that Clyde Tolson and he had a relationship that spanned most of their life; they lived with each other, had lunch and dinner, and [Hoover] left everything to Clyde. Unarguably, they were partners in some sense.

Did you grow to like Hoover?

I think he started off with good intentions, but I completely disagree with a lot of his tactics. I grew to have more respect for him and what he did; but like him? I don't think I liked what I understood of him, his ideals or beliefs.

What about Clint?

He was fantastic; he always knew what he wanted and always gave you an honest direction. The man really trusts his own instincts as a director more than most people I've worked with. He reacts from his gut -- he either likes what you do or doesn't and tells you straight away, and you make adjustments on the spot.

Titanic is about to be released in 3D. Have you seen it?

I haven't seen the 3D [version] at all yet; I am scheduled to -- I hear it's going to be fantastic. Jim [Cameron] called me personally to tell me this was going to happen. I said, "Cool! I can't wait." There's nobody who can do it better.

[by_princess]

by the way... the pic of The Hollywood Reporter magazine.

OMG Daddy-o!!!! you're so freaking HOT

[FashionDream]

I know!! ... great cover!!!

[by_princess]

Edit

[by_princess]

How Makeup Transformed Leonardo DiCaprio Into 'J. Edgar'

How makeup artist Sian Grigg and costume designer Deborah Hopper turned the handsome 36-year-old Dicaprio into the aging FBI director.

In J. Edgar, Leonardo DiCaprio undergoes one of the most dramatic physical changes of his career, spending six to seven hours a day in makeup. Transforming him into J. Edgar Hoover -- seen from his mid-20s into his 70s -- required a trunkful of prosthetics including fake teeth, a bald cap, a device to reshape one nostril, latex body pads, colored contacts and layers of silicone applied to the actor's face.

Leo's been subjected to some very long makeups by me in the past, but this film is his most challenging," says Sian Grigg, the actor's makeup artist since 1997's Titanic, who was nominated for an Oscar in 2004 for her work with DiCaprio on The Aviator. DiCaprio's transformation wasn't a huge stretch for the scenes where Hoover is seen in his youth. "Their facial structure is similar because Hoover still had quite a fine jaw at that time," she says.

Surprisingly, DiCaprio was able to use one of the prosthetics he wore to his advantage. Fangs FX (which has done teeth for the Harry Potter films) made upper and lower dental appliances with ceramic plumpers to push out his mouth. The uppers and lowers were for old Hoover, and "Leo asked to wear the lower one for the younger scenes. I think it helped him change his speech," says Grigg. Because Clint Eastwood doesn't like monitors or playbacks on the set, an attentive director of photography was essential. "Tom Stern, the cinematographer, let me know whenever there was something that needed our attention. There was no CGI needed on any of Leo's makeup; that's staggering in this day and age."

Grigg is now in Australia doing DiCaprio's makeup for The Great Gatsby. No latex aging this time. But she's over the moon about his J. Edgar transformation. "Leo's performance brings the makeup to life. Layers of prosthetics are like acting with a paper bag on your face and Leo had to learn to exaggerate his expressions so they would show through the appliances. I really believed he was old. And I stuck it on his face."

When it came to the clothes for the film, a big conundrum for BAFTA-nominated costume designer Deborah Hopper (Changeling) was DiCaprio's padding. Grigg applied molded latex on his body so that it felt like his own flesh. He wore a small amount of padding as young Hoover, but the fat suit was enlarged and included latex arm pieces as he aged. Given Hoover's increasingly portly physique, it's hard to think of him as a fashion plate. But think again. Hopper's intense research revealed that Hoover and his protege, Clyde Tolson, were keenly aware of -- one might say obsessed with -- their images. "Hoover and Tolson were extremely meticulous about their appearances," says Hopper. "They wore pocket squares, watch fobs, ties, tie tacks and cuff links, and Hoover was very particular about his hats."

In the film, Tolson, played by Armie Hammer, brings Hoover to his tailor at Garfinckel's department store to be fitted for his first double-breasted suit, just as Tolson did in real life. DiCaprio wears 80 suits, several custom-made from vintage fabrics. Rather than crafting a similar number of pairs of shoes, Hopper trimmed her expenses by buying classic wing tips, lace-ups and spectators -- which pass for period footwear -- from Wisconsin-based shoe company Stacy Adams.

The designer -- who also oversaw costumes for more than 3,000 extras and 130 speaking roles -- used color palettes for each decade to help the viewer keep track of the time from the '60s to the '20s and '30s and back again. The '20s feature brown, nubby-textured suits. In the '30s, the dark navy and gray wool suits are showier, some with bold stripes and textures. In the '60s, sleeker suits come in smooth solids like charcoal, navy and brown.

"Having worked with Clint for so long, I also know that he prefers a muted palette," says Hopper, who was with the director on Mystic River, Gran Torino and Million Dollar Baby. As Hopper sees it, the film, in addition to being a fascinating American political drama, is an "American men's fashion history."

THE REAL HOOVER

J. Edgar Hoover was known for his bulldog jaw, which is why DiCaprio wore dental appliances to push out the lower part of his face. According to Grigg, he also had terrible teeth. "He didn't like to show them," she says. "I only saw one bit of footage where you could see his teeth, and they were dreadful. He had them all replaced in his 30s and wore dentures the rest of his life."

DICAPRIO AS J. EDGAR

The Hair: For the older Hoover, DiCaprio wore a full silicone bald cap, with individual hairs punched in. Then a toupee was glued on top and the two were blended together.

The Eyes: The actor wore two pairs of contact lenses, one on top of the other. Brown contacts were overlaid with lenses that yellowed and aged the whites of his eyes.

The Skin: Ultra-soft silicone appliances were applied all over the actor's face. "The fact that they are so soft makes them hard to apply. They are like pieces of Jello, but they enable the face to move like real skin," says makeup artist Sian Grigg.

The Nose: Because one side of Hoover's nose protruded (the result of an infected boil when he was young), Grigg inserted a circular augmenter in one of DiCaprio's nostrils to make it look slightly off-kilter.

[oxford25]

More of Hollywood Reporter article, talks about Leo be willing to slash is usual fee

Six hours a day of makeup. A $35 million budget. A movie star who took one-tenth of his Usual fee. director Clint Eastwood takes THR inside the complicated production about the polarizing, possibly cross-dressing FBI founder.

Well into production of J. Edgar, Clint Eastwood's new biopic, the old Eastwood -- the veteran of Dirty Harry and Magnum Force and A Fistful of Dollars -- suddenly sprang into action.

To teach his stars Leonardo DiCaprio and Armie Hammer (as J. Edgar Hoover and his longtime partner, Clyde Tolson) how to perform a scene in which they get into an all-out brawl, the 81-year-old director decided to show them himself.

"Clint was there with one of his stunt-guy friends, Buddy Van Horn, and they put on an impromptu fight scene for us," Hammer marvels. "There's Buddy standing in the middle of the room and Clint says, 'I think it should be something like this' -- and he explodes into Clint Eastwood the fighter and they start smacking each other around and rolling on the floor. And then Clint just gets up and says, 'OK, something like that.' "

The fight didn't just reveal what great shape Eastwood is in (he frequently worked out with weights during the shoot and regularly plays golf); it also showed his commitment to this story about the bulldog-like Hoover, who ran the FBI and the government arm that preceded it from 1924 until his death in 1972 -- a period in which he worked with eight presidents and may have kept secret files on everyone from Eleanor Roosevelt to John F. Kennedy. He also maintained tabs on Hollywood: keeping a 2-inch-thick file on gossip columnist Hedda Hopper while supplying her with tidbits; spying on Marilyn Monroe's meetings with Robert F. Kennedy; and even vetting James Stewart before he starred in The FBI Story.

Such shocking information doesn't even touch on allegations that he was gay (most likely), a racist (definitely) and a cross-dresser (quite possibly).

"All along the way, people accused him of being a cross-dresser," Eastwood notes. "But nobody knows how accurate it was. Evidently the woman who accused him of that, her husband had been sent to the slammer by Hoover. So you don't know how much was vengeance."

Eastwood himself believes "there is a certain amount of truth" to all the allegations, but wanted to retain some ambiguity, and that meant casting the right actor to pull it off. DiCaprio dropped his fee from $20 million to around $2 million for this project, sources say.

"He could have made a lot of money just doing spectacle movies with all kinds of CGI," says the filmmaker of his first-time collaborator, who at 36 is 45 years his junior. "But he wants to vary his career, like I've always looked to vary mine as a director."

The role has placed DiCaprio, who ages from 24 to 77 years old in the movie, squarely in the middle of this year's Oscar race -- a contest that's frequently bypassed him. He has been nominated three times -- for 1993's What's Eating Gilbert Grape, 2005's The Aviator and 2006's Blood Diamond -- but never won. Eastwood himself has been nominated on 10 occasions and won four statuettes. If he wins again, it will be thanks to a man he's not even sure he likes.

"He was a very political animal," he says. Asked if he's sympathetic to Hoover, he adds: "I don't know. I'm sure I wouldn't have agreed with a lot of his philosophies."

Hoover -- whose techniques included wire-tapping, paying informants and possibly working with the mob -- long has been an object of fascination for Hollywood, which glorified him in its ABC TV series The FBI (1965-74) and has told his story in movies such as 1977's The Private Files of J. Edgar Hoover with Broderick Crawford and 1987's J. Edgar Hoover with Treat Williams.

Born in 1895, he created the FBI as we know it, joining the organization in 1924 when it was still called the Bureau of Investigation and he was under 30 years old. (Remaining there for the rest of his life, he died of a heart attack in 1972.) In many ways he was brilliant, disciplining his staff and using modern techniques to shape arguably the best law enforcement group in the world. But over time, he changed, turning virulently anti-communist and keeping invasive files on friends and enemies alike.

All this was grist for the mill as far as DiCaprio was concerned.

"He's always been somebody I never could quite put my finger on," he notes, calling him "one of the most incredibly ambitious human beings I've ever heard of. The more I researched him, the more intrigued I became."

The movie began not with DiCaprio, or even with Eastwood and Warner Bros. -- the studio that releases it on Nov. 9 after J. Edgar kicks off the AFI Film Festival in Los Angeles on Nov. 3 -- but somewhere else. Imagine Entertainment co-chairman Brian Grazer initiated the project, at first titled Hoover, through his deal at Universal.

"I was fascinated by the FBI and how it became what it is," Grazer explains. "On the one hand, Hoover had this level of patriotism, and on the other, he was as diabolical as any man in the world."

But who could put all this into a two-hour script that was fair without shying from the truth?

Dustin Lance Black was eager for the job. It was the fall of 2008 and he saw Hoover's tale as a thematic parallel to Milk, his yet unreleased biopic on slain gay activist Harvey Milk (for which he'd soon win an original screenplay Oscar). After a few meetings with Grazer and Imagine executive Erica Huggins, the trio agreed on Black's approach: Not to indict Hoover, but still to present him warts and all.

Now Black immersed himself in research, reading dozens of books and meeting with as many men as possible who knew Hoover personally. (All the FBI agents dating back to Hoover's era were men; the women who were closest to him -- his mother, Annie, and his secretary, Helen Gandy -- died in 1938 and 1988, respectively.) He was surprised at how polarized the accounts he found were.

"A lot was written when it was just hip to vilify J. Edgar," Black says. "And the books contradicted each other so often. Some would come out and tell you he wore dresses to parties; others would say that's impossible and he was so dedicated to his work he was married to the FBI."

Still, Black was convinced the FBI chief was gay: "Reading his mother's journal entries made it quite clear you were not allowed to be a gay kid in that household."

The movie comes close to making this clear when Tolson aggressively kisses Hoover on the mouth at the end of their fistfight, and Hoover at one point is seen wearing his mother's dress.

Despite this, the FBI was helpful, putting its official historian, John Fox, on the case. "Clearly some people there are very protective of his image and don't even want to consider he was gay or did anything wrong," says Eastwood's producing partner, Robert Lorenz. "Then there is a whole other group of typically younger people who accept everything you've heard."

Black says some of the notes the FBI provided were "fantastic. I took at least half of them and incorporated them in the script -- like the fact that their first lab was actually in the smoking lounge, which I found really funny."

Most useful, Black says, were the numerous in-person interviews he conducted, including several with former FBI agents he found had retired to Simi Valley, Calif. Still, for an entire year he struggled to find his way into the story and didn't write a single word until a breakthrough in October 2009.

"I was thinking about all the things Hoover said about himself," Black explains. "There were so many lies and distortions -- and I realized, this has to be told from the perspective of an unreliable narrator." Hoover himself had to tell the story.

In a frenzy of activity, Black wrote his entire script by that December, working 16-hour days, linking key events such as the Lindbergh kidnapping and the Kennedy assassination as Hoover dictates his memoirs. Then he presented his finished work to Imagine, which in turn took it to Universal.

Through most of the past year, Universal had embraced the project; after all, Black was an Oscar winner and Grazer its most prestigious in-house producer. But something had changed. The studio was reeling from a string of flops with Bruno, Public Enemies and Land of the Lost and had already gone through major personnel shifts, with co-chairmen David Linde and Marc Shmuger departing, and Adam Fogelson and Donna Langley taking their place. It didn't need more drama in the form of J. Edgar Hoover. And so the studio passed.

It was around that time that Grazer approached Eastwood, with whom he'd worked on Changeling.

"I read it and thought it was extremely interesting," says Eastwood. "I grew up, of course, in an era where Hoover was always the top cop, but I'd heard different stories over the years. Anybody who stays on a job as long as he did is bound to have some controversy."

Eastwood pored over each controversial aspect with Black, repeatedly questioning him on sourcing. He also drew on his friendship with then-CIA chief Leon Panetta to arrange a private dinner with FBI director Robert Mueller.

"He wanted to know about the stutter [that Hoover had as a youth]," Black says. "He said, 'Did you make up the stutter?' Things he thought were really good, he wanted to make sure weren't just convenient. I really respected that."

Another matter they discussed was the injections Hoover allegedly received when he was older. "The FBI had a problem with that in the script," Black notes. "Clint wanted to know about it. But it was not uncommon at the time to have a little amphetamine-vitamin boost."

Eastwood asked for two key changes: He wanted the film to be called J. Edgar to avoid any confusion with the president or the vacuum cleaner. And he cut a sequence that would have proved exorbitant.

"That's where the young Hoover is going home on a trolley car, in the middle of the race riots [in 1919]," says Black. "But it was so incredibly expensive."

Throughout, manager Rick Yorn had been keeping close tabs on the script on behalf of DiCaprio. With Eastwood on board, DiCaprio quickly followed.

He immersed himself in the role, even going to Washington, D.C., to see where Hoover had worked and lived. "I went on a little tour of his life -- his childhood home, his bedroom, his workplace," DiCaprio recalls. "I walked through his daily routine, saw his office, met the historian at the FBI -- they have an incredible amount of respect for him and rightfully so. He did a lot of wonderful things for our country, and also some pretty heinous things."

"He's intensely curious," Black says of the actor. "He had a team looking for video of Hoover and found things I'd never seen. He'd pull me aside and say, 'Listen to this speech. Can we get that in there?' "

A case in point: The animal metaphors that DiCaprio discovered Hoover loved. "We put a lot of slithering, slimy, snaky words in those speeches," Black says. (On one occasion, he tells a Congressional committee, speaking of criminals: "We must not for a moment forget that their squirming, their twisting and slimy wriggling, is no less than an assault on every honest citizen.")

Still, even with two superstars on board, financing wasn't readily at hand. Then Warners came in.

"It's a biopic, and there's a limit to how much those can make," says Jeff Robinov, president of the motion picture group for Warner Bros. "But the bet was on Clint and Leo," helped by a major rebate from the Los Angeles shoot.

"With Clint, it's a really unique thing," Grazer observes. "They don't use the two-letter word; they don't say no. What they say is, 'Yeah, let's do it, but let's try to do it at a good price.' "

That price was $35 million.

On Feb. 7, production on the 128-page script started in downtown Los Angeles and the Warner and Paramount backlots. The small budget and 39-day shoot put enormous pressure on the cast and crew.

Eastwood hired actors he admired, like Naomi Watts as Gandy and Judi Dench as Hoover's mother. Casting director Fiona Weir talked an initially reluctant Hammer into signing on. With his cast in place, Eastwood focused on some of the technical aspects of the film, turning to veterans of his team, like cinematographer Tom Stern, who flew in from his home in the south of France, and production designer James Murakami, who says the shoot was especially challenging.

In one case, when a house is bombed, the whole set had to be transformed within an hour. "It went from an unscathed building into a bombed-out one during the dinner break," says Murakami.

A far bigger challenge for him was creating the vast set that would represent a huge part of the Department of Justice where Hoover had his office, built on Warners' stage 6. While tactics such as photographing the actual terrazzo floor and digitally reproducing it on fiberboard saved money, the realism of Murakami's set created challenges for Stern. Lighting a long hallway proved complicated: lights couldn't be hung from the ceiling as it was visible in many tracking shots.

"In one scene, we start in Hoover's office and he and Clyde take off and they're joined by Naomi Watts and go through the hall and into the crime lab -- and it's all in one shot, 200 feet long," Stern recalls. "It was really tough, but we did the whole thing in two or three takes."

That was typical of Eastwood's style. "With Clint," says DiCaprio, "you prepare, you prepare, you do an incredible amount of research and it's like getting ready for a stage production, because you move at an unbelievably fast pace and it keeps you on your toes. But then you get this instant adrenaline rush."

That was one reason he endured so many hours in the makeup chair. "We discussed the idea of relying on visual effects, to make it easier for the actors," says Lorenz. "But Leo was insistent; he wanted to be sure it was going to look right." Both makeup artist Sian Grigg and Hammer marveled at DiCaprio's intense prep: he spent hours every day walking and talking with fake teeth, a nose stretcher, aging makeup and a skullcap.

With production concluding March 30, Eastwood embarked on an unusually long editing phase as he brought the picture down from a rough cut of three hours to two hours and 15 minutes. He never backtracked on Hoover's more controversial aspects, which didn't surprise Black, having observed the master at work.

"I'd wondered how Clint would treat [the homosexuality]," he says. "But when we were shooting and I saw the tenderness with which he approached some of those scenes, I felt I was in very safe hands."

Looking back, Eastwood says he had no trouble with that material, and yet he admits he remains divided about Hoover.

"He's a mystery man," he says. "You understand little elements of him, but that's all. And that's what made his story appealing: to bore in and figure out who he was."

[oxford25]

By Princess & Fash

Thanks for all the articles and great pix and cover

[katchitup]

Nice new cover! Thanks princess, fash and ox for the articles and new cover

Its crazy how much makeup they had to put on leo to make him look like hoover!

[by_princess]

Leonardo Dicaprio Talks 'J. Edgar,' Dustin Lance Black Says He Got Fat

Whether he plays an underground cop on the streets of Boston or a wealthy aviation pioneer, true Leonardo DiCaprio fans will almost always see the dreamy boy from Chippewa Falls. But in "J. Edgar," where he stars as the not-so-sexy FBI director, his physical transformation is undeniably shocking.

The New York Times profiled the actor and revealed that while he spends a good deal of his time dating the most beautiful women in the world, he takes his work very seriously.

He did months of research to take on the challenging role. He toured the Justice Department and one of Hoover's past homes; he even found obscure film footage of a young Hoover and read through transcripts of his Congressional testimony.

"I wanted him to tell me how he walked, how he talked, what his hands looked like, what his desk looked like, what was above his desk," DiCaprio said."The research of these roles is half the fun and half the challenge -- maybe more. It's what makes it exciting to me."

While the actor studied Hoover's style and the way he spoke, he also picked up a little habit that made embodying his physique a bit easier, too: Eating.

Screenwriter Dustin Lance Black talked about DiCaprio's love of German chocolate cupcakes. "Some of those pounds on later Hoover were not prosthetic," he said. "I'll say it. Leo got a little fat."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/02/l...f=entertainment

[oxford25]

More Django news, I loved the music in the Kill Bill series of films

RZA joins 'Django Unchained' cast

Composed Tarantino's "Kill Bill" soundtracks

By Jeff Sneider

Quentin Tarantino is reaching out to a familiar face for a part in "Django Unchained," tapping his "Kill Bill" composer RZA for a supporting role in the Weinstein Company's spaghetti Western.

RZA will play Thaddeus, a violent slave working on a Mississippi plantation.

Additionally, "Frozen River" star Misty Upham has been cast as a trading post-bar owner named Minnie.

RZA scored both "Kill Bill: Volume 1" and "Kill Bill: Volume 2" for Tarantino, who is presenting RZA's directorial debut "The Man With the Iron Fists," which RZA co-wrote with Tarantino's "Inglourious Basterds" star Eli Roth. RZA stars

in the Universal pic alongside Russell Crowe, as well as Tarantino alums Pam Grier and Lucy Liu.

Best known as the de facto leader of the Wu-Tang Clan, RZA has spent the last several years building his feature resume and studying top-tier directors, with appearances in Ridley Scott's "American Gangster," Judd Apatow's "Funny People," Todd Phillips' "Due Date" and Paul Haggis' "The Next Three Days." Thesp, who recently wrapped production on Paramount's "G.I. Joe 2," will soon be seen in "A Very Harold and Kumar 3D Christmas." RZA will also join David Duchovny on the upcoming season of Showtime's "Californication."

RZA is repped by ICM and attorney Joe Carlone, while Upham's deal was brokered by Blaine Johnston and Kevin McGinley of Rogues Gallery Management.

[barilace]

Thanks everyone for the pics/articles/etc.

But...eh. Hollywood Reporter people, I do not approve of that shirt you put Leo in. Shoulda gone with a solid color so I could UNF over him. Alas.... Lol.

[by_princess]

The actor Leonardo DiCaprio “has made a career of highly risky choices,” writes Brooks Barnes, “and somehow it keeps paying off not only on the awards circuit — he has been nominated for three Academy Awards — but at the box office as well.”

[by_princess]

Clint Eastwood Taught Leonardo DiCaprio How to Fight in 'J. Edgar'

If you have to film a fight scene on the set of a Clint Eastwood movie, you better learn how to do it right. While shooting the upcoming biopic 'J.Edgar,' Leonardo DiCaprio and Armie Hammer (or, more specifically, their characters) were required to get into a brawl. But before the camera started rolling, Dirty Harry himself stepped in to show them the ropes.

In this week's Hollywood Reporter, Hammer talks about how it all went down.

"Clint was there with one of his stunt-guy friends, Buddy Van Horn, and they put on an impromptu fight scene for us." said Hammer. "There's Buddy standing in the middle of the room and Clint says, 'I think it should be something like this' -- and he explodes into Clint Eastwood the fighter and they start smacking each other around and rolling on the floor. And then Clint just gets up and says, 'OK, something like that.'"

That's right: Eighty-one-year-old Clint Eastwood can still throw down with the best of them. Although, if you've ever watched 'Gran Torino,' then you'd know that already.

'J. Edgar' opens November 11 nationwide. To read about the making of the film, head on over to the Hollywood Reporter.

http://adf.ly/830863/banner/http://blog.mo...=FlickDaily.com

[Pami]

Wow!

Tks for these articles,just loved it! I can understand why some people still associate Leo to Jack Dawson,but I need to say that Leo is not only Jack Dawson,he's much more than that. Jack Dawson was a great character,outstanding, but Leo had many other outstanding performances. And Leo was a great actor well before Titanic. If so,we will need to say that Leo is Jack Dawson,Danny Archer,Billy Costigan,Arnie Grape,Howard Hughes,Romeo and so on...

Poor Leo...still must be very tired from the long journey!

[Nanda23]

Where do I start... I'm so lost, too much information at once and I stopped to think properly since I saw his picture in the magazine. DAMN! EXTREMELY HOT :drool: :drool: .

Oxford and By_princess... great job girls! Thanks a lot.

And thanks fash and wijn too. Thanks to everyone.

I remember when Leonardo DiCaprio said the same thing, and he ended up being a hell of a great actor, but in all honesty DiCaprio always actually had a great talent for acting.

Soooooooooooooooo TRUE .

DiCaprio dropped his fee from $20 million to around $2 million for this project, sources say.

Talk about professionalism and commitment. I love this men soooo bad.

"Some of those pounds on later Hoover were not prosthetic," he said. "I'll say it. Leo got a little fat."

Pounds he has lost, truth be told. He looks great in these latest photos .

I'm sooooo excited about this week. Many photos, videos and interviews to come. Finally!

And just to share with you all. Today I watched Titanic on TV again (always )... I cried like a baby . Kate Leo melt my heart.

[Pami]

Loved the Hollywood Reporter Cover Fash!!

[oxford25]

More about upcoming LACMA event from Wall Street Journal including the information that Leo's favorite artist Stevie Wonder will be performing, and that many fashion people will attend

Inside the Plans for L.A.'s Own Met Ball Los Angeles County Museum of Art Enlists Di Caprio and Gucci to Raise Its Stature; Amping Up Star Power

By CHRISTINA BINKLEY

With a little help from Gucci and Leonardo DiCaprio, Los Angeles is planning to have its own Met Ball this weekend.

New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art uses its Costume Institute Gala, which has grown into an Oscar-style evening of star-gazing and fashion, to raise its profile—and millions of dollars.

Now the director of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Michael Govan, hopes to raise the stature of Lacma, as the museum is known, with a red-carpet fashion event. The museum aims to be—like the Met—a broad collection of art and artifacts, including clothing, furnishings, film and other items not traditionally heralded as fine art.

Mr. Govan is enlisting influential pals in the fashion and film industries to help. Gucci is the primary sponsor of Lacma's "Art + Film Gala," which set as its goal raising more than $2.5 million, with tables priced as high as $100,000. (Mr. Govan says he had "pushback" from some donors about the high prices, but exceeded the funding goal two weeks before the event.)

Eva Chow, who will co-chair the gala with Mr. DiCaprio, says guests who are expected to attend on Nov. 5 include fashion elite such as Lanvin designer Alber Elbaz and Stefano Tonchi, the editor of W magazine and a fixture at major fashion shows. Art and film stars are expected to include Clint Eastwood—who is being honored along with artist John Baldessari—Julian Schnabel and film director Ridley Scott.

Lacma's inaugural ball doesn't approach the size of the Met Ball. Hosted by Vogue magazine, the New York event draws A-list entertainers, socialites, fashion designers and their muses. Behind its fashion clout is Vogue editor Anna Wintour, who has turned the fundraiser into an internationally watched event by enlisting celebrities and fashion houses. Next spring, the Met Ball will highlight its show on Elsa Schiaparelli and Miuccia Prada.

But just as the Met Ball enthralled the fashion world, Lacma's event could deepen its support from Hollywood. Mr. Govan "has been very clever" in establishing how Lacma can be an "encyclopedic museum" by pursuing such a broad variety in both its collections and its supporters, Ms. Chow says.

"Michael sat down with us and said, 'I want to connect film and art and fashion and I really need a partner," says Robert Triefus, global head of marketing and communications for Gucci. He says Gucci executives wanted to sponsor the effort because "Los Angeles is very important to us."

Fashion and film have long been intertwined in Los Angeles, whose red carpets serve as a key marketing platform for myriad fashion brands. Mr. Govan moved quickly upon his arrival five years ago to bolster the museum's costume collections as well as its relationships with fashion houses.

His wife, Katherine Ross, has deep fashion connections. She is a brand consultant for Balenciaga and a veteran executive of both LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton and Prada. Balenciaga is owned by PPR, which owns the Gucci brand.

Mr. Govan, who previously directed New York's Dia Art Museum, has raised Lacma's profile since he arrived. He has invested in a wide variety of items that go beyond traditional art. One major purchase last spring was a 16th-century Peruvian textile acquired, Mr. Govan says, for $500,000. The museum, under his stewardship, purchased a costume collection that included Queen Victoria's nightgown as well as clothing from the French Revolution. Its collections include clothing by Cristóbal Balenciaga and Issey Miyake.

The museum even bought a circa-1960 Greg Noll surfboard recently. "It's easier to buy a Rembrandt," says Mr. Govan, describing the difficulty in establishing rules for buying artifacts that aren't the norm for fine art. In hours of discussions, the museum's acquisitions committee established whether a collection-worthy surfboard could be worn by use—and how many nicks and scratches were acceptable.

A current exhibit, California Design, includes clothing, furniture and other household objects. The museum resurrected the living room of designers Charles and Ray Eames—with all 1,800 objects in it, including the lamps and a ladder used to clean the high windows.

"I feel we had gotten stuck in a 19th-century hierarchy of disciplines," says Mr. Govan, who argues that fashion and household objects can have as much artistic merit as a painting. "There's a lot of fashion that's extremely challenging."

Mr. Govan's next frontier is film—a natural for a museum that sits within the klieg-light glare of Hollywood. He hopes to house the film collections of the Motion Picture Academy, which produces the Oscars, and has been holding movie premieres at the museum. "We got more press when Angelina [Jolie] showed up for the 'Tree of Life' premiere," he says.

Gucci, which will be dressing a number of stars for the gala's red carpet, sees its commitment to Lacma as long term. "It could become as important as the Met Gala is to the Met," says Mr. Triefus.

In addition to Gucci's designer, Frida Giannini, the gala's host committee includes Dasha Zhukova, the Russian art and fashion patron who recently founded Garage magazine, which positions fashion as high art. Terry Semel, former chairman of Warner Brothers and Yahoo! Inc., and a Lacma trustee, is also a host. "It struck us that we are an eclectic museum," he says. "Why not do more things with very popular and famous people?"

The gala, which will feature a performance by Stevie Wonder, will be held outdoors near a bronze sculpture by Ai Weiwei. The red carpet will run alongside "Urban Light," a Chris Burden sculpture that has become iconic in L.A.

Mr. Govan, who has been to the Met Ball "many times," says he likes the rite of the red carpet. "You can call it crass. But you can call it a ritual of culture," he says.

Write to Christina Binkley at [email protected]

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Hopefully we'll get some video footage and pix from this even that will take place Friday during the day

LA Confidential Calibrates Clint Eastwood LACMA Tribute

By Richard Horgan on November 1, 2011 5:00 PM

Another awards season march for Clint Eastwood is set to begin Saturday via the Art + Film gala at LACMA and continue November 11 with the AFIFest premiere of his latest directorial effort J. Edgar.

Ahead of this weekend’s event, which will also honor artist John Baldasseri, LA Confidential magazine has shared a Q&A primer conducted by event co-chair (and LACMA trustee) Eva Chow with gala organizer Michael Govan. Govan makes a surprising revelation about the museum’s ongoing endowments:

”In the last ten years, while our donations have grown, the one category we’ve had almost no donations to has been film. But I don’t think that’s because there’s no interest, and I don’t think it’s because there’s no generosity in this city—I think it’s just never been focused.”

Chow meanwhile relates how event co-chair Leonardo DiCaprio was instrumental in helping relaunch LACMA’s film efforts. On Friday November 4, DiCaprio, Eastwood and others will also participate in a LACMA Q&A screening of J. Edgar, with moderation by New York Times writer Charles McGrath.