Jason Merritt/Getty ImagesLeonardo DiCaprio will at least be considered an Oscar-winning actor in Russia.
The Wolf of Wall Street star has received an open-ended invitation to either attend or star in any play, ever, put on by the Chamber Theater in the Urals city of Chelyabinsk--and the honor is being extended tangibly in the form of a cast-iron "Russisan Oscar" statue!
It's not a little gold man, but at least it comes from his fellow thesps, right?
"As Leonardo does not speak Russian, we can start with offering him a wordless part of a servant in the play Captive Spirits [Plennye Dukhi]," Chamber spokesman Yury Sychev told Russia's Khoroshiye Novosti, per The Hollywood Reporter.
And there are bigger roles in store if DiCaprio can pick up the language, Sychev promised, while also noting that the American movie star is free to drop the Chamber's name for publicity.
The ever-deserving DiCaprio, while a two-time Golden Globe winner, is now 0-for-5 with the Academy (counting his producing credit on Wolf, a Best Picture nominee), losing his latest Best Actor bid to the awards-season freight train that was Matthew McConaughey's performance in Dallas Buyers Club.
Still, Leo seemed to enjoy himself Sunday all the same, even though his many fans with a few extra minutes on their hands took to the Internet to illustrate their displeasure immediately.
He wasn't too bummed to make the post-show scene, at least: DiCaprio and model girlfriend Toni Garrn capped the night off at Madonna's Gucci-sponsored afterparty at manager Guy Oseary's house, as did Jennifer Lawrence, Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, Ellen DeGeneres and Portia De Rossi, Bradley Cooper and Suki Waterhouse and a host of other A-listers.
"There's one thing I learned a long time ago, is that you have absolutely no control of that," he told the U.K.'s Absolute Radio in January when asked how much he'd like to win an Oscar for The Wolf of Wall Street. "You know, I've done many movies with the greatest intentions and they didn't get well-received, and on the other end of the spectrum there's films that have been very free-form and have gotten lots of attention.
"All you can do is really try your best...So, look, I'd love for this film to get recognized, simply because, you know, this has been something that's been a real passion project for me. This and The Aviator were two films I developed for over eight years and this, in particular, was a very important one because of what happened after 2008 [the U.S. financial crisis]. I wanted these people to be put up on screen in a very authentic portrayal. I wanted people to understand what's so tempting about this world and where people take the wrong paths."
Mission accomplished there, for sure. Not to mention, Leo's only 39. His name will be inside that envelope (in English!) one of these days.