Miscasting a Boyish Star Instead of Casting Correctly with a Man

The career of Leonardo DiCaprio has been a distinctly bizarre one

Clearly he has an acting talent, but with the launch of Titanic and the subsequent help of being the star in many Martin Scorsese movies, Leo became a star beyond his ability to fit his casting in certain roles.

It happened in two ways. One was that the former child star retained a child's face for many years, and consequently when cast in "adult" roles, looked miscast. The other was that Leo's face -- quite the cutie-pie look in Titanic, aged out -- as do the faces of many child stars -- into something less cute, less handsome, less "movie star perfect." This manifested recently when Leo was cast alongside Brad Pitt in QT's "Once Upon a Time in Hollywood" -- the naturally good looking Pitt ended up making Leo look, well...less handsome.

The "child miscast as a man" problem shows up in Scorsese's "Shutter Island," in which Leo as a tough fifties cop wears suit, overcoat and hat and looks for all the world like a little boy dressed up in his oversized daddy's clothes.

And the "boy miscast as a man" problem shows up differently here in Revolutionary Road, in which , in the "great gimmick" casting of Leo re-united with Kate Winslet, what was sort of an issue even way back in Titanic(a nice spindly boy getting to romance a buxom, curvy young woman) becomes manifestly ridiculous. She looks like a woman; he looks(and sounds) like a boy.

But it was a huge "coup" to get Leo and Kate("Jack and Rose") re-united on screen, so the miscasting was practically required to make the movie happen.

Of some irony is that, during the time that "Revolutionary Road" came out, the AMC cable network had its well-reviewed, intellectual 60's nostalgia piece on the air -- Mad Men -- and here was a show in which a near-unknown (Jon Hamm) WAS correctly cast as the alpha male husband and father in a NYC train commuter village marriage(to a well-cast January Jones as his pretty and troubled blonde wife.)

By the perverse luck of Hollywood, Leo DiCaprio was a movie superstar(by the luck under which movie superstars are created) at the time that Jon Hamm was not much of anybody -- but Jon Hamm would have been more appropriate casting for "Revolutionary Road." Which would be impossible, because "Revolutionary Road" was a movie requiring movie stars. (And as it has turned out, Jon Hamm is in movies over a decade later, but not looking to be a movie star at all.)

Leo's miscasting in Revolutionary Road(look at his face in the poster opposite Winslet for proof) is not simply a matter of not fitting the part as Jon Hamm would have -- its in not fitting the part as the actors of previous generations would have, either.

Leo is part of a modern-day contingent of "boy stars" -- begun by Tom Cruise and shifting through Matt Damon and Leo and , to a certain extent, former teen heartthrob TV star Johnny Depp(whose name even sounds boyish) and Brad Pitt(more boy than man for awhile, but he has aged into his looks.)

The thing of it is, in previous generations, the role Leo plays in Revolutionary Road would have been BETTER played(in looks and maturity) by such people as William Holden, Gregory Peck, Paul Newman , George Segal, or even James Garner back in their day. Heck, even Jack Lemmon might have been a better match for the look of the role back then.

But those days are over, Leo is a star highly sought, re-teaming him with Kate Winslet was an achievement too great to turn down and we end up with ...a good movie with a miscast lead.

PS. It seems to me that Leo's best roles have been ones where his boyish quality matches the story: Catch Me If You Can, Gangs of New York(though DDL wipes him off the screen), Django Unchained(as a kind of evil slave plantation Boy King) and Wolf of Wall Street(where Leo sexed himself up and played comedy well.) He used The Revenant , a big beard and a macho survival story to fight his looks and won the Oscar. And in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, he graciously plays the insecure TV hero in comic comparision to Pitt's real heroism.

"Too much a boy to play a man" parts include The Aviator(as Howard Hughes romancing all those Hollywood beauties), Shutter Island, J. Edgar(Hoover, in bad latex make-up as the old man) and...Revolutionary Road.