Leonardo DiCaprio has longtime fans pondering if a former teen heartthrob by any other name is still just as famous.
The Oscar winner recently revealed that he was originally told his name was “too ethnic” and advised by one of his early agents to perform under a stage name, which brought a strong reaction out of his father.
“I finally got an agent. They said, ‘Your name is too ethnic,’” he recounted on the New Heights podcast. “I go, ‘What do you mean? It’s Leonardo DiCaprio?’ They go, ‘No, too ethnic. They’re never going to hire you. Your new name is Lenny Williams.’”
DiCaprio added, “I said, ‘What is Lenny?’ I was 12,13. I said, ‘What is Lenny Williams?’ ‘We took your middle name and we made it — now you’re Lenny.’”
The One Battle After Another star recalled to his co-star Benicio Del Toro that his dad saw a headshot featuring the new stage name, “ripped it up, and he said, ‘Over my dead body.’”
Leonardo DiCaprio in ‘One Battle After Another’
Warner Bros./Courtesy Everett Collection
Del Toro recalled a similar experience. “I was told the same thing. ‘You’re Benny Del,’” he shared with DiCaprio.
DiCaprio became a household name with breakout roles in What’s Eating Gilbert Grape (1993), Romeo + Juliet (1996) and Titanic (1997).
In One Battle After Another, he plays ex-radical Bob Ferguson, who reunites with his former group of revolutionaries to go head-to-head with old nemesis Col. Steven J. Lockjaw (Sean Penn) and rescue his daughter Willa (Chase Infiniti). The film also stars Del Toro, Regina Hall, Teyana Taylor, Alana Haim and more.
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