Leonardo DiCaprio fans, listen up – your favourite Oscar-winning actor has landed a new movie role as…Leonardo!
Da Vinci, that is: Leo DiCaprio will be starring in an upcoming adaptation of Walter Isaacson’s book on Renaissance artist Da Vinci, a story of his life and art based on his historical notebooks.
Deadline have revealed that Paramount won a bidding battle with Universal over the rights to the film adaptation, apparently spending into seven figures. It is thought that Leonardo will produce the film alongside Jennifer Davisson under their Appian Way banner.
Since winning an Oscar for The Revenant in early 2016, Leo hasn’t starred in anything – but he is scheduled to appear in Martin Scorsese’s adaptation of Killers of the Flower Moon.
And, here’s a fun fact for you: Leo was actually named after Leonardo Da Vinci, as the actor’s mother felt little baby Leo kick for the first time while she examined one of Da Vinci’s artworks at the Uffizi Gallery in Florence.
In 2014 Leo told NPR: “They were looking at a Da Vinci painting, and allegedly I started kicking furiously while my mother was pregnant. And my father took that as a sign, and I suppose DiCaprio wasn’t that far from Da Vinci. And so, my dad, being the artist that he is, said, ‘That’s our boy’s name’.”
Must be destiny, right?
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