In Django Unchained, his character was "a slave owner in a time when slaves were like oil to plantation owners and money was king - he had complete disregard for human life". "And it was indicative of the financial crisis that was happening at the time."Īfter this latest film, the actor also realised that his last two major movies, last year's Django Unchained and The Great Gatsby, had explored a similar theme: the dark side of the American dream, or "the need to obtain great wealth at any cost in America, and the corruption of that wealth, the corruption of the people".
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"To me, it was like a modern-day Caligula, a modern-day Roman empire - complete debauchery and disregard for any consequences or anyone around them," he says of Belfort's Wall Street brokerage, which defrauded more than 1,000 clients. I'm not going to respond so quickly to potential movies because I want to think about it and feel whether I'm motivated to tell that story."Īnd Belfort's story - which ended in a 1998 conviction for securities fraud and money laundering, followed by 22 months behind bars - was just "something that I could never get rid of". "And that takes a while to sort of sit on. "Or, you know, there's something that's intangible, something that's real to you and you have a calling for. He is drawn to a script if "there's an authenticity to a subject matter or the way a writer portrays a character", he says.