NEWSLeo: Hard to Talk About Love
Oct. 1 2008, Published 5:31 a.m. ET
Leonardo DiCaprio doesn't regret making Titanic, but please, don't call him a heartthrob.
"It wasn’t what I wanted to be," Leo tells Parade.com. "It was like a runaway train. This thing just took off. I didn’t understand what was happening to me. My instinctive reaction to this tabloid madness was to want to run away.”
And run he did, staying out of movies for awhile and trying to protect his private life.
“I am proud to have been in Titanic,” he says. “I’m grateful for the possibilities it’s given me. If it hadn’t been for that movie, I wouldn’t have been able to take control of my career. It was during that time that I started to think about things that meant more to the world than this glorified, superficial media exposure of me, something I never felt was justified."
But for the last few years Leonardo has been back in the public eye, garnering Oscar nominations for a string of non-heartthrob roles in movies like Blood Diamond and The Aviator; working with former Vice President Al Gore against global warming and of course, romancing famous models like Gisele Bündchen and, most recently, Bar Refaeli.
Although he once said love and marriage weren't for him, the Body of Lies actor says all that's changed.
“What I definitely feel a need for is to make my life about more than just my career,” he confesses in the interview. “Just last night I was thinking to myself how little of my life has been lived normally and not spent on some far-off movie location. I want to get married and have children. In saying that, I realize I am contradicting everything I’ve said before. I absolutely believe in marriage.”
Don't expect him to go blabbing to anyone who will listen about his personal life, however.
“It’s hard to talk about this stuff,” he says. “I want to keep some of this for myself. When we talk about ourselves, we know the bad parts, too.”
For the rest of how Leo's life has changed since Titanic, check out Parade.com.
