Leonardo DiCaprio Ate Raw Bison Liver, Slept in Animal Carcasses and Lived to Tell the Story in The Revenant

Actor is receiving award show buzz for his latest performance

By Mike Vulpo Oct 21, 2015 9:09 PMTags
The Revenant, Leonardo DiCaprioTwentieth Century Fox

The things actors will do for a movie role.

We've seen countless Hollywood stars transform their bodies for a project. There's also the celebrities who develop accents and create unforgettable characters.

For Leonardo DiCaprio's latest role in The Revenant, however, he's doing something very few actors have done before.

"I can name 30 or 40 sequences that were some of the most difficult things I've ever had to do," the actor told Yahoo before his film is released Christmas Day. "Whether it's going in and out of frozen rivers, or sleeping in animal carcasses, or what I ate on set. [I was] enduring freezing cold and possible hypothermia constantly."

The sleeping situation we can maybe handle. But what did he eat on set?

"I certainly don't eat raw bison liver on a regular basis," DiCaprio teased. "When you see the movie, you'll see my reaction to it, because [director Alejandro González Iñárritu] kept it in. It says it all. It was an instinctive reaction."

For those curious about the movie basics, The Revenant tells the story of a frontiersman (DiCaprio) who is searching for the men who robbed him and left him for dead after a bear attack. The film is based on a novel of the same name by Michael Punke, which is based on a true story.

While the filming process was easily some of the most "difficult things" DiCaprio has ever had to do in his career, the actor is proud of the end result.

"The end result is going to be one of the most immersive experiences audiences will ever have with what it would be like to come face-to-face with an animal of that magnitude that is incredibly primal," he shared. "The truth is that I knew what I was getting into."

He's not kidding. There's already award show buzz brewing and the film doesn't hit theatres until Dec. 24.

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