Would DiCaprio have made a better or worse Dirk Diggler than Wahlberg?

[Stefen]

I'm reading Bill Simmons The Book of Basketball and he has a what if scenario involving this and he says DiCaprio would have made a better Dirk, but I don't think that's the case.

I can't tell if Wahlberg was just perfect for the role or if I'm just so accustomed to him being Dirk that I can't imagine anyone else playing that character.

Wahlberg had the idiot teenager part down pat and it seems it's almost a role he was born to play.

I don't think DiCaprio could have pulled it off. Maybe he could he could have Gilbert Graped it and made it even more hilarious (how funny would it be to see Gilbert Grape get frustrated because he can't get an erection?), but I don't see it.

If anyone thinks DiCaprio could have done a better job, please convince me.

[72teeth]

Picturing DiCaprio as Dirk only makes the Scorsese influence so much more evident...

[matt35mm]

Wahlberg has the bigger cock.  End of.

[md]

PTA studies his actors too well to have Walhberg just be Dirk.  There's alot of Dirk in Walhberg and PTA captured it perfectly.  He would have done the same for Dicaprio, but would it have been better?  Its hard to argue but probably not.

Off topic, but does anyone think DDL would be perfect as "The Master" compared to PSH, given the info and scenes that have been revealed?  Maybe I just want more Daniel Plainview, but I personally don't think its a bad thing.  I'm sure PSH will be fantastic, but he's always such a sweetheart, I just can't see him being vengeful.  Although he was kind of a dick in person. 

[JG]

PTA studies his actors too well to have Walhberg just be Dirk.  There's alot of Dirk in Walhberg and PTA captured it perfectly.  He would have done the same for Dicaprio, but would it have been better?  Its hard to argue but probably not.

Off topic, but does anyone think DDL would be perfect as "The Master" compared to PSH, given the info and scenes that have been revealed?  Maybe I just want more Daniel Plainview, but I personally don't think its a bad thing.  I'm sure PSH will be fantastic, but he's always such a sweetheart, I just can't see him being vengeful.  Although he was kind of a dick in person. 

"you play that game, don't you?"

"that's that!"

and those are just pta movies.. he does seedy well!

[Gold Trumpet]

Wahlberg is perfect as Dirk Digger. Many of the attributes of the character come naturally to him. The only times he was extending himself was during some emotional breakdown scenes, but he did them fine. DiCaprio would have had to project a lot of the character and since he was so young, I don't think he had the full capabilities. It isn't that his performance would have blemished the film that much, but it would be obvious he wasn't perfect for the role like Wahlberg was.

[picolas]

i think it's a very unfair question. we can never know what dicaprio would've done. and while mark is clearly PERFECT, who knows. dicaprio is the better actor overall. you just can't know. who had any idea what heath's joker would be like?

i really wonder about how dicaprio would've done hans landa, though. that just seems impossible.

[md]

PTA studies his actors too well to have Walhberg just be Dirk.  There's alot of Dirk in Walhberg and PTA captured it perfectly.  He would have done the same for Dicaprio, but would it have been better?  Its hard to argue but probably not.

Off topic, but does anyone think DDL would be perfect as "The Master" compared to PSH, given the info and scenes that have been revealed?  Maybe I just want more Daniel Plainview, but I personally don't think its a bad thing.  I'm sure PSH will be fantastic, but he's always such a sweetheart, I just can't see him being vengeful.  Although he was kind of a dick in person. 

"you play that game, don't you?"

"that's that!"

and those are just pta movies.. he does seedy well!

touche.   

[polkablues]

PTA studies his actors too well to have Walhberg just be Dirk.  There's alot of Dirk in Walhberg and PTA captured it perfectly.  He would have done the same for Dicaprio, but would it have been better?  Its hard to argue but probably not.

Off topic, but does anyone think DDL would be perfect as "The Master" compared to PSH, given the info and scenes that have been revealed?  Maybe I just want more Daniel Plainview, but I personally don't think its a bad thing.  I'm sure PSH will be fantastic, but he's always such a sweetheart, I just can't see him being vengeful.  Although he was kind of a dick in person. 

"you play that game, don't you?"

"that's that!"

and those are just pta movies.. he does seedy well!

"How's the peeping, Tom?"

[Pas]

Doesn't make sense. Leo is too feminine-pretty to play Dirk Diggler.

that's actually silly talk to me.

[Pubrick]

to talk about leo's alternative casting is an incomplete thought experiment unless you combine it with warren beatty's similar rejected offer. the difference in the film would be the difference between Warren Beatty + Leo / Burt Reynolds + Marky.

the film as it stands today could not be seen any other way. Wahlberg was born for that role cos as picolbug said it was twisted to suit his personality and what can't be acted out of him. that is he carried into Diggler all the stuff that seems useless or awkward in other roles since, his dumb look, his mouf-breathing meat head intensity. so the character of Diggler can be seen as kind of trashy and the film reflects this. along with Reynolds, who really is the actor that sets the tone for the film. they both combine to give the movie a cheap quality so that we feel like these nobodies really are no-good idiots with surprising talents - diggler with his dick and horner with his moral values. in short, it makes the movie about underdogs that we discover WITH the film itself.

the alternate version of the film with beatty as horner and leo as diggler would be a completely different trajectory. we would already start with the impression that OBVIOUSLY leo/eddie adams is destined for success, because Leonardo Di Caprio IS DIRK. he's a huge star, practically since childhood. seeking wahlberg was an inspired casting move because it kept that specific character trait, marky too had early success and must have felt very early in his life that he was just DESTINED for success.. but the difference is that it didn't really pan out that way (until this film).. so whalberg IS DIRK BUT AT THE END OF THE FILM, not the start.

Reynolds has the same experience as beatty in that they were both heartthrobs in the 70s but obviously burt had nothing on the latter, by the end of the decade while Beatty was off winning oscars (Reds) reynolds was doing the equivalent of showing his penis to a sweaty dude in a parking lot for a little bit of cash (smokey and the bandit II). in that sense he is the perfect father figure for someone like Wahlberg cos his career has the life lesson that dirk at the END of the film has learned. his instincts and his caring actions are motivated cos he has made the same mistakes, so that when prodigal Dirk returns at the end he can only accept him as his son, as an image of himself, and so he does embrace him in an unconditional way.

the dynamics of Beatty with Leo would have kept the story as a relationship of equals, but the starting point would influence a different pay off. the story, plotwise, obviously wouldn't change, but the nuances of the characters, that is the stuff that is brought to the script by the actors themselves (this is what casting is all about), would make it a classier film. Beatty and Leo would bring so much class to the characters and overall tone that Boogie Nights would be a film that starts in bright lights (and it actually does), then introduces some darkness (by way of downward spirals), which it does, and finally settles on a dim light, that is what remains of the beauty and gloss and promise that it once showed.. the challenge would be to make it believable that such luminous faces could ever experience that kind of darkness.

THE REAL BOOGIE NIGHTS has a different trajectory because of its cheap components.. it begins with stars who hav already dimmed. they tell you their past instead of their future. it's much more mature because it makes us empathize with real failures. its trajectory is that of starting in brightness which instantly appears to mask a pre-destined darkness, the films inevitable burn out is then not exactly the point, rather it's the idea that what was once luminous may appear to hav dimmed, but in fact still carries a brightness within. the image of Dirk's dick at the end is essentially a little spark: the lights that surround the mirror echo the lights surrounding his name which were in fact the lights surrounding the film's title at the beginning. the glimpse of the dick is as the dialogue states, the glimpse of the big bright shining star, and as it leaves the frame back into his pants we can imagine its extinction as a single light bulb going off in that bright frame that we remember was always in his mind.

[picolas]

..............

[md]

That's a well written perspective P. 

But to say that the film's trajectory would have completely flipped flopped seems criminal.  What about pta's denial of the suspected motive of casting walhberg because he was just the calvin klein model and reynolds because he was the 70's icon. Those are the undermining reasons why the characters are true to life, unique and cathartic?

I think we are overlooking the characters as they were written and presuming the audiences expectations of any of the actor's careers without the context of the film itself; the expectations of what the public thought a film about the porno industry could be and the irony it manifests knowing that (porn)stars are real people too. 

Sure there is going to be cheapness.  It's set in the 80's.  Sure there is going to be charm. It's the movies.  And its that way because of how it was written. 

[Alexandro]

yes of course the movie is written that way but casting when it has names like that brings a weight to the whole thing that can make the experience different. I don't know if Boogie Nights would have been so different with those actors or any other actors, but a film that really would have been another thing with beatty in it is kill bill. I mean I can't imagine beatty doing the shit carradine did, specially as a martial arts mentor.

[modage]

Today, ShowBizSpy reported what it says in our headline: Leonardo's biggest regret in his career to date was walking away from Boogie Nights. In their words:

Leonardo DiCaprio admits his "biggest regret" is turning down the chance to star in Boogie Nights.
The Titanic star — who is currently riding high at the box office with summer blockbuster Inception — says he still can't forget the one dream role that got away.
"My biggest regret is Boogie Nights," says Leo, who lost the role of porn star Dirk Diggler to close pal Mark Wahlberg. "I'm a huge fan of (director) Paul Thomas Anderson but the first time I met him for that role I hadn't really seen much of his previous work. Now I love that movie."