In a 2022 profile for GQ, Fraser shared a narrative about assembly DiCaprio on the Paramount lot after a screening of Lasse Hallström’s “What’s Consuming Gilbert Grape.” Although DiCaprio had turned in a spectacular efficiency in Michael Caton-Jones’ adaptation of Tobias Wolff’s “This Boy’s Life” a 12 months prior, the movie was curiously brushed apart by the studio and critics. So when he took on the function of the intellectually disabled Arnie in Hallström’s movie, there was a way of discovery.
There was additionally a contact of pandering expressed by the movie’s admirers. DiCaprio was 19 years outdated when the movie was launched, however he regarded a lot youthful than this. He had a babyface, one he would not totally shed till the early 2000s (circa Scorsese’s “The Aviator”). Because of this, individuals handled him as a toddler actor, a precocious expertise who was extra instinctive than educated. He might be the following Timothy Hutton or a movie historical past footnote like Justin Henry.