Hollywood Royalty

DICAPRIO: I had a brief run at that on television, being thrown on the cover of teen magazines, and I was trying to work away from that. I wanted to establish myself as an actor who put a lot of thought into his characters and did good work. And then I did a movie called "Titanic," and there I was, right back into that position of being looked at as another piece of cute meat.

PITT: That you are . [ Laughter ]

DICAPRIO: It was pretty disheartening to be objectified like that. I wanted to stop acting for a little bit. It changed my life in a lot of ways, but at the same time, I can't say that it didn't give me opportunities. It made me, for the first time, in control of my career. But yeah, it was weird.

Brad, Hollywood wanted you to be a conventional leading man. You didn't.

PITT: Acting is about discovery, for me, and these "leading man" scripts--Leo can testify to this--they're all the same guy. You can plug any one of us into it and you get a variation on a theme, but anyone can do it. Where is the discovery in that?

BLANCHETT: So did you guys look to a relationship with a director to help champion the way out?