Why Leonardo DiCaprio Turned Down The Lead In Boogie Nights

Leonardo DiCaprio is one of the last true movie stars we have. To his credit, he's fairly choosey with his projects and uses his clout to work with auteurs — no superhero movies for Leo! (It's advice that he passed on to Timothée Chalamet.) DiCaprio is now Martin Scorsese's go-to leading man (thanks to a recommendation from Robert De Niro), he's worked twice with Quentin Tarantino, etc. Yet, somehow, 2025's "One Battle After Another" was the first time DiCaprio had worked with director Paul Thomas Anderson, a fellow Gen X cinema icon.

Yet, in another timeline, DiCaprio and Anderson's stars could've exploded together in 1997. In his commentary for "Boogie Nights," Anderson revealed that DiCaprio was one of his primary choices to play the film's protagonist: young porn star Eddie Adams/"Dirk Diggler" (who was ultimately portrayed by Mark Wahlberg). PTA saw DiCaprio and Wahlberg act together in 1995's "The Basketball Diaries" and knew he wanted one of them as his leading man.

DiCaprio, though, was busy with another project — a little picture you may have heard of called "Titanic." In a 2025 conversation with Jennifer Lawrence (hosted by Variety), DiCaprio explained that the two movies "kind of overlapped in production." "Maybe it could've worked out," DiCaprio added wistfully, but at the time, he didn't want to risk that or spread himself too thin.

So, Anderson cast Wahlberg as Dirk, and the rest is history. Now, it's not like DiCaprio got a bad deal; having to choose between starring in "Boogie Nights" or "Titanic" is the definition of a good problem to have. But even so, DiCaprio has often listed not starring in "Boogie Nights" as one of his greatest regrets.

In August 2025, Esquire hosted a conversation between Paul Thomas Anderson and Leonardo DiCaprio (with PTA as the interviewer). When the director asked DiCaprio if he had any regrets, the actor cited "Boogie Nights":

"It was a profound movie of my generation. I can't imagine anyone but Mark [Wahlberg] in it. When I finally got to see that movie, I just thought it was a masterpiece. It's ironic that you're the person asking that question, but it's true."

"Why did it take us so long?" PTA then asked. But the 28 years they waited to finally team up allowed DiCaprio to age perfectly into a much different character than Dirk Diggler (or heartthrob artist Jack Dawson in "Titanic," for that matter). In "One Battle After Another," DiCaprio plays Bob Ferguson, a former far left revolutionary who's spent 20 years in hiding raising his daughter Willa (Chase Infiniti).

Bob is all the way over the hill and spends most of his time smoking weed. Even when he's thrust back into action to rescue Willa from Colonel Steven Lockjaw (Sean Penn), he's always one step behind. Bob's funniest scene in the movie is when he tries to call in help from fellow revolutionaries, yet he's shut down because his stoned out brain forgot some key passphrases; DiCaprio plays Bob's exasperation with first annoyance, then anger, and then finally tears.

In the world where DiCaprio starred in "Boogie Nights" and another actor up for the role of Jack (say, Ethan Hawke) appeared in "Titanic," then working with PTA wouldn't have been DiCaprio's most burning desire and we may've never gotten him as Bob. Now that DiCaprio has worked with PTA, I hope he can put his "Boogie Nights" regrets to bed.