My four months with Leo

Fancy spending four months as Leo’s friend? Daniel Caltagirone, Unhygenix in The Beach, did while filming, and here’s his story.

“When you read about someone like Leo in the papers, there’s this mystery attached to them. What’s weird is that when you finally meet them, the mystery goes and they just become a normal person. So when I was hanging out with Leo when we were filming The Beach, he just became like another friend.

Beach Mates

It wasn’t like that when we first arrived in Thailand to start work. We spent the first two weeks being trained and getting to know each other – in the film, we’re a community, and we are supposed to have been together for a long time. Firstly we had a session on the beach where each of us had 15 minutes to tell everyone about ourselves. It got to Leo and we thought he’d be excluded because he’s so famous. But he stood up, said “My name’s Leonardo Wilhelm DiCaprio,” and talked about where he was born and his life. We were all on the same level. After that initial introduction he was no longer Leonardo the film star – we became like a family. For the next four months we were just mates hanging out and having a laugh. In the movie I play Unhygenix – the guy who cooks for the whole community and sticks of fish. I learned how to gut fresh fish in seconds and cook them using only what you’d have on the island. By the end of the movie I was cooking for everyone and even Leo was eating it. In fact, he mucked in with all of us – whether it was learning how to fish, or do gardening, or clearing away the forest where we’re supposed to live. We also had a personal fitness instructor, and Leo was included. We were on the beach at 6am every morning – jogging, doing press-ups and squats. Sometimes we just couldn’t stop laughing.

Fishy tales

On any set, there’s people you spend more time with than others. Leo was friendly with all of us, but he couldn’t hang out with everyone. So in our spare time on weekends, Leo Guillaume (Etienne) and I would go out and do stuff. He’s a very active guy who likes to do physical things – he took us scuba diving and deep sea fishing several times. He’s really just like any other 24-year-old so we’d also muck around on Playstation and just chill out together. The hardest part of our time out there was working in the intense heat. And we got homesick – we spent four months there and by the end we really wanted to get home. Leo’s girlfriend, Kristen, came out to see him and they seemed to be really in love. She was a very sweet girl. He also had some of his friends over – the ones he grew up with.

Star struck

Leo’s under a huge amount of pressure considering his age, but he’s got a good head on his shoulders. Funnily enough, he told me he feels safer in LA then anywhere else. He walks around on his own there, but in Thailand the threat was bigger and he always had two armed body guards with him. There was one time when Leo, Guillaume and I were just running along the street having a water fight, and we realised there was something like 3,000 people in this square, watching us. Or we’d be near some shops and see all these T-shirts inside with his face on them, or lots of posters of Titanic. Leo would keep his head down and stay quiet – he just accepts it. And when you’re with him, so do you. It wasn’t until we went out to restaurants together that the reactions of other people made me remember who is. I’d suddenly think: “Christ! I’m with Leo DiCaprio!” He’s really quite amazing. One day we were in hysterics about something, laughing and laughing, and Leo had to go and shoot a really intense scene. He just switched and the transformation was spot on – it was amazing how he didn’t need to get psyched up. That gives you an idea of his talent. He’s simply one of the best actors around.”

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