Don't Look Up star Jonah Hill shared a funny story about spending lockdown with Leonardo DiCaprio during filming. Don't Look Up, which premiered on Netflix on December 24, 2021, stars DiCaprio as an astronomy professor who is part of a team that discovers that a comet is hurtling toward earth. Jonah Hill plays Jason Orlean, the son and Chief of Staff of the president (Meryl Streep) who wants to politicize ignoring the discovery in order to distract from her recent sex scandal. In just one month, Don't Look Up became the second most-watched Netflix film of all time.
This isn't the first time the duo has worked together. Their very first shared film credit was the Quentin Tarantino western Django Unchained, in which Jonah Hill had a brief cameo. The next year, they starred together properly in Martin Scorsese's Jordan Belfort biopic The Wolf of Wall Street, which was nominated for five Oscars, including acting nods for both men. The two have clearly formed a bond, because in addition to reteaming for Don't Look Up last year, in 2019 the pair co-produced the Clint Eastwood thriller Richard Jewell.
Speaking with W magazine, Jonah Hill explained that the COVID pandemic, while horrible, made him reprioritize how important having fun was in his life. He suggested to DiCaprio that the two of them live together while filming Don't Look Up in Boston, and DiCaprio agreed. Hill says that because of lockdown, "we couldn’t go to restaurants, so we lived in a house together and watched tons of films." Read the full quote below:
Covid was horrific, but it did make me reprioritize the value of being irreverent and funny. I thought, We should all just laugh! While in lockdown, during the making of the movie, Leonardo DiCaprio and I decided to live together in Boston. We couldn’t go to restaurants, so we lived in a house together and watched tons of films.
Don't Look Up was filmed from November 2020 through February 2021, during a time when wide vaccine access was only on the cusp of coming to the United States. Cases were also surging with particular vigor during that holiday season, so their options for off-set entertainment were limited to none. What movies they watched together, and whether or not they might have influenced the performances they ended up giving in the movie, is a question that might never be answered.
Don't Look Up has received mixed reviews overall, but it has clearly cemented in the bond between the two co-stars. It will be interesting to see what the pair get up to next because they clearly gel well with each other's sensibilities. DiCaprio isn't typically known for the kind of comedic film that Jonah Hill made before transitioning to more awards-oriented material, but Don't Look Up is certainly a place where their acting sensibilities truly meet in the middle. Perhaps the time will come that DiCaprio will completely cross the line into starring in an out-and-out Jonah Hill comedy like Superbad or 21 Jump Street.
Source: W Magazine