When the studio balked at casting the young actor, Stone took the helm.
Shortly before the young Leonardo DiCaprio received his first Oscar nomination for the tragic comedy “Gilbert Grape – Somewhere in Iowa”, filming began for the western “Faster Than Death”. For those responsible for the film, DiCaprio was still relatively unknown at this point and they didn’t want to cast him. But a prominent actress stood up for him and the future “Titanic” star could finally be admired on the screen in the work in 1995.
“Why someone unknown, Sharon?”
Sharon Stone and Russel Crowe, who were already part of the Faster Than Death cast, saw something in him that Sony Pictures probably didn’t. The studio had great doubts about using an unknown actor. Stone wrote in her memoir “The Beauty of Living Twice” that there was a lack of understanding on the part of studio officials about the proposal. “Why someone unknown, Sharon, why do you keep shooting yourself in the foot?” she was said to have asked. But Stone insisted on her suggestion and really wanted to have DiCaprio as a scene partner in “Faster Than Death”. He impressed at the audition and in “Romper Stomper” with his emotionality and performance, as the actress goes on to say.
The studio eventually gave in to the requests and a deal was struck with producer Mike Medavoy. In order to get DiCaprio in the film, the then 35-year-old had to dig into her own pocket: “The studio said: If I want him there so much, I should pay him with my own fee. So I did that.”
DiCaprio responded to the anecdote to E! News”: “I thanked her many times for that.”