Thanks to the overwhelming success of his role in Paul Thomas Anderson’s One Battle After Another, Leonardo DiCaprio is on track to win his second Academy Award. After five nominations, the Titanic star finally landed the trophy back in 2016 thanks to his work in Alejandro González Iñárritu’s brutal Western historical drama, The Revenant, and is certainly a front-runner this time around. Of his previous nods, DiCaprio received critical acclaim from the Academy thanks to his efforts in Lasse Hallström’s What’s Eating Gilbert Grape, Martin Scorsese’s The Aviator and The Wolf of Wall Street, and Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.
What one might notice from the long list of potential Oscar wins is that DiCaprio has a certain penchant when it comes to playing characters based on real-life personalities. His win with The Revenant saw the actor push himself to the limits as the legendary frontiersman Hugh Glass, while his work in The Wolf of Wall Street saw him dive head first into the unbelievable life of disgraced New York stockbroker, Jordan Belfort. But, it’s through his team-up with Scorsese in The Aviator as famed pilot, adrenaline junkie, and Hell’s Angels director, Howard Hughes, that stands out as his biggest snub yet.
The biographical drama, which also stars Cate Blanchett as Katharine Hepburn and Kate Beckinsale as Ava Gardner, charts the course of Hughes’ life and watches his rise to fame as a money-making film producer and an aviation enthusiast. The project also covers the darker chapters of Hughes’ life and showcases his immense struggles to cope with obsessive-compulsive disorder with some scenes that fully showcase DiCaprio’s incredible range. While the Academy may not have seen The Aviator as a winning title in the actor’s catalog, audiences in the U.S. will soon be invited to give it another watch completely free of charge, as it will join Tubi’s impressive lineup of films on March 1.
Who Else Starred in ‘The Aviator’?
As one would expect, Scorsese didn’t pull any punches when bringing the impressive and at times depressing story of Hughes to the big screen. Filling out the ensemble cast is an impressive lineup that also features Jude Law (The Talented Mr. Ripley), Ian Holm (The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring), Alec Baldwin (The Boss Baby), John C. Reilly (Gangs of New York), Alan Alda (M*A*S*H), Gwen Stefani, Willem Dafoe (Nosferatu), Kelli Garner (Lars and the Real Girl), Edward Herrmann (Gilmore Girls), and Matt Ross (The Last Days of Disco).
The Aviator soars onto Tubi on March 1.
