GMU Pop Culture Journalism

Feature Response: Leonardo DiCaprio

Written on November 26, 2010 – 12:05 pm | by emilysharrer

I love Rolling Stone’s front page features because they are usually successful at delving into the details of some celebrity or musicians life and shedding light on things that were previously unknown about that person. I find that Rolling Stone’s features are also able to successfully incorporate minute details and information about whatever upcoming project the interviewee is working on that landed them the cover of RS.

One feature I read a couple months ago that sticks out, is a feature on Leonardo DiCaprio from RS. While this feature isn’t really in my beat, I feel it provides a good groundwork for the kind of feature I want to produce since I am focusing on one guy and telling the story of record culture in D.C. through my interviewee.

For this feature, Brian Hiatt interviewed DiCaprio in a West Hollywood restaurant and also followed Dicaprio around on several occasions it seems from the story. The research Hiatt did is obvious from his first paragraph as he drops the details of DiCaprio’s life in one tidy fell swoop.

“DiCaprio knows that no dream could be more improbable than his own life story. Teen heartthrob at 17, Oscar nominee two years later, the prettiest, most profitable frozen corpse in cinematic history at 23 — and he has escaped all of that in the past decade, diving into ever-more dark and layered performances, becoming Martin Scorsese’s post-Robert De Niro muse.”

Through the rest of the feature, his research is also apparent as he compares DiCaprio’s movements or expressions to previous films DiCaprio has starred in. Quotes from Martin Scorsese and Christopher Nolan round out the description of DiCaprio provided and give insight into DiCaprio’s working reputation.

I like the overall structure of the feature; since it came out as a promotion of “Inception,” Hiatt begins by detailed dreams that DiCaprio has been having recently, beginning with a short punchy line: “Last night, Leonardo Dicaprio dreamed of monsters.” I don’t know that there are any questions I was left asking; this feature must have been over 2,500 words and I liked the direction it went in and the themes it focused on.

The organizational structure of the feature:

–         Long intro about DiCaprio’s dreams

–         Background information, rundown of DiCaprio’s career up to this point

–         New information we didn’t know: Leo sweats the small stuff. Description of who DiCaprio is on a day-to-day basis.

–         End of the first section draws to a close with more details about what’s haunting DiCaprio and a tie-in to this whole “dream theme” that runs through the feature

–         The next section is the information taken from an interview session with DiCaprio in a restaurant and talks about DiCaprio’s working life. This is where quotes from directors appear.

–         Details about “Inception,” what it’s about, the pitch for the movie.

–         The next section catches up with DiCaprio a week later as he’s driving around and talks about projects that have fell through and what he’s interesting in pursuing. More details about his post-Titanic success and his celebrity are provided.

–         The next section is about DiCaprio’s childhood east of Hollywood and his parents rubbing elbows with celebs

–         The next section is taken from another interview conducted with DiCaprio and shows a silly side of the actor. Here, he is singing loudly in a restaurant. Talks about “Growing Pains,” other childhood gigs and tells two stories to define DiCaprio: about his landing a role with De Niro and him smoking a cigar outside a restaurant.

–         The last part of the feature is another story about a near-death experience DiCaprio had and a wrap-up of the whole story with an anecdote about DiCaprio striving for immortality on the screen.

• Check out an excerpt for the feature here.