Leonardo DiCaprio Shouldn’t Have Played ‘Idiot’ in ‘Flower Moon,’ Says Paul Schrader
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Paul Schrader would like a word, please. In a new interview with French publication Le Monde, the screenwriter — who has worked with Martin Scorsese on iconic films Raging Bull and Taxi Driver — shared his dissatisfaction with Leonardo DiCaprio playing “the idiot” Ernest Burkhart instead of the FBI agent in Killers of the Flower Moon.
“I would have preferred Leonardo DiCaprio to play the role of the cop in Killers of the Flower Moon rather than the role of the idiot,” he said. “Spending three-and-a-half hours in the company of an idiot is a long time.”
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Regardless, Schrader liked the movie. “Marty compares me to a Flemish miniaturist. He would be more the type who paints Renaissance frescoes,” he added. “Give [Scorsese] $200 million, a good film will inevitably come out of it.”
Scorsese previously revealed that DiCaprio was meant to play the film’s FBI agent Tom White, but that DiCaprio asked to change his role. He takes on the role of Burkhart, the husband of Mollie Burkart (Lily Gladstone), instead in the film based on David Grann’s bestselling 2017 book, Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI. Jesse Plemons plays the role of White.
“After two years of working on the script, Leo came to me and asked, ‘Where is the heart of this story?’ I had had meetings and dinners with the Osage, and I thought, ‘Well, there’s the story,'” Scorsese previously said, explaining the film was originally focused on the perspective of the FBI agents. “The real story, we felt, was not necessarily coming from the outside, with the bureau, but rather from the inside, from Oklahoma.”
Earlier this year, Scorsese spoke to Rolling Stone about preparing for this film by meeting with the Osage people. “I remember the mood and the emotion of it,” Scorsese said. “When we walked into the Wakon Iron Hall, everyone in the community was lined up to greet us and shake our hands.”
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