Leonardo DiCaprio spent 5 months tweaking Netflix's 'Don't Look Up' script before signing on
- "Don't Look Up" director Adam McKay still can't believe DiCaprio is in his Netflix comedy.
- But McKay said DiCaprio loved the script, though the Oscar winner then spent 5 months tweaking it.
- "It was about a four-to-five month process with us just kicking around ideas," he said.
Netflix's "Don't Look Up" won't just team up Oscar-winners Jennifer Lawrence and Leonardo DiCaprio, but will feature DiCaprio doing a rare comedic role.
Director Adam McKay still can't believe the superstar actor signed on to the film that follows two astronomers, who go on a media tour to warn the world that a giant comet is approaching that will destroy earth.
"I think he's amazing and I love his work, but I just thought there's no way he's going to do this because if I could only work with Martin Scorsese, I would only work with Martin Scorsese," McKay said recently on the "Happy Sad Confused" podcast, noting that the two are frequent collaborators on films such as "The Wolf Of Wall Street" and "The Departed." "I would be Martin Scorsese's assistant on set. So why would he do this with me?"
The "Step Brothers" director added that while he wrote the female astronomer role specifically for Lawrence, it took a while for DiCaprio to commit to the movie. But McKay later learned that the actor loved his script.
"We went back and forth on [the script]," McKay said on the podcast. "It was about a four-to-five month process with us just kicking around ideas. We took a break for the quarantine, and lo and behold once we figured out a theoretically safe way to shoot this movie, he was in. I couldn't believe it. It's no surprise he's fabulous in the movie."
"He's really funny; really grounded," McKay continued. "It's a great mix and it was perfect with Jen Lawrence, who is the same way. She's crazy funny but grounded. When you had those two as our main people, the style of the movie was set."
McKay told Insider last year that he came up with "Dont Look Up" after doing this last movie, "Vice," a biopic on the former president Dick Chaney, starring Christian Bale in the role.
"I needed to laugh because that was the bleakest thing I've ever worked on," McKay said.
"Don't Look Up," which also stars Meryl Streep, Timothée Chalamet, Cate Blanchett, Jonah Hill, Matthew Perry, Tyler Perry, and Ariana Grande, will premiere on Netflix later this year (Currently, no release date has been set).