Leonardo DiCaprio talks being recast in Killers of the Flower Moon after the script ‘didn’t get to the heart of’ the Osage story as he joins co-star Lily Gladstone for British Vogue shoot

Leonardo DiCaprio has given a rare interview with British Vogue ahead of the release of Apple TV+’s £160million film, Killers of the Flower Moon.

The actor, 48, stars alongside Lily Gladstone, 37, in the Martin Scorsese film, based on David Grann’s 2017 book about the FBI’s investigation into a string of murders among the Osage Indian community in the early 1920s in Oklahoma.

Leonardo fronts the publication’s October issue and talks about why he was recast from playing head FBI investigator Tom White to real-life husband Ernest.

The Western true-crime thriller stars DiCaprio as Ernest Burkhart, who arrived in Fairfax, Oklahoma, and married Mollie Kyle, played by Gladstone at the behest of his uncle, William Hale played by Robert De Niro.

Leonardo, who rocks a black polo and suit for the shoot, says of Scorsese tearing up the original script: ‘It just didn’t feel like it got to the heart of it.

Speaking out: Leonardo DiCaprio has given a rare interview with British Vogue ahead of the release of Apple TV+’s £160million film, Killers of the Flower Moon

Critical acclaim: The actor, 48, stars alongside Lily Gladstone, 37, in the Martin Scorsese film, set for release on Apple TV+ on Oct 20

One to watch: The Western true-crime thriller stars DiCaprio as Ernest Burkhart, who arrived in Fairfax, Oklahoma, and married Mollie Kyle, played by Gladstone
‘We weren’t immersed in the Osage story. There was this tiny, small scene between Mollie and Ernest that provoked such emotion in us at the reading, and we just started to penetrate into what that relationship was, because it was so twisted and bizarre and unlike anything I’ve ever experienced before.’

The Osage Nation is a Midwestern Native American tribe of the Great Plains and developed in the Ohio and Mississippi river valleys around 700 BC.

Scorsese and his team worked closely with Osage Principal Chief Geoffrey Standing Bear and his office, and hundreds of Osage were involved in making the film.

The Hollywood legend sings his praises about co-star Lily, who wears a Christian John Rogers wool sweater dress and sweater for the cover shoot.

‘Lily is absolutely astonishing in this movie, she carries the entire film and the story,’ he says.

Of his and Martin’s first meeting with the actress over Zoom, Leo adds: ‘There was no reading, Marty just instinctively knew Lily was the one.. There was a truthfulness in your eyes that he saw even over a computer screen.’

‘I’ve never known [Scorsese] meet somebody and then immediately afterwards have this gravitational pull and instinct to say, ‘Let’s not wait another minute.”

In May, Killers of the Flower Moon received a rapturous nine-minute standing ovation when it premiered at Cannes Film Festival.

Big fan: The Hollywood legend sings his praises about co-star Lily, who wears a Christian John Rogers wool sweater dress and sweater for the cover shoot

Film: Leonardo, who rocks a black polo neck, says of Scorsese tearing up the original script: ‘It just didn’t feel like it got to the heart of it’

As early reviews for the three and a half hour epic roll in, it was safe to say the iconic director’s first ever Western would go down as a ‘triumph’ when it hits cinemas.

‘Hollywood has a long history and chequered past in its depiction of Native American people,’ Leonardo says.

‘We need to do more. You know, we are coming towards a great reckoning of our past. The more that these stories can be told in a truthful way, the more it can be a healing process.’

A wide array of film critics have already given the DiCaprio led movie five stars across the board, with one even hailing it as the best of its genre.

Words like ‘searing and ‘masterpiece’ were bandied about by critics who managed to get their hands on a ticket to the first screening.

IndieWire said DiCaprio gives ‘his best-ever performance,’ while The Guardian awarded five stars for a ‘remarkable epic about the bloody birth of America’.

The three-hour epic will receive a limited theatrical release, including on Imax screens, on Oct 6, before streaming globally on Apple TV+ on Oct 20.

See the full feature in the October issue of British Vogue, available via digital download and on newsstands from Tuesday 26 September.