MOVIE NEWS – In an interview with Esquire magazine, Leonardo DiCaprio revealed that he almost met his idol, actor River Phoenix, the night he died at the age of 23.

A missed act. Coming soon to Quentin Tarantino‘s movie Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood, Leonardo DiCaprio told Esquire Magazine what he considers to be the “most disturbing and sad” moments that he has known in the film industry. And for him, this is none other than the death of the actor River Phoenix, at the age of 23 years. “I grew up looking at River Phoenix as the great actor of my generation, and all I wanted was to have the opportunity to shake his hand,” says Leonardo DiCaprio.

A dream that the star actor Titanic could have achieved at a party in Silver Lake. But that ended in a failed act. “I saw him climb a staircase, it was almost like something you would see in Vertigo (Alfred Hitchcock, Ed), because I saw something in his face, and I’d never met him – I had always wanted to meet him, always wanted to meet him – and he was walking towards me and I froze a bit and then the crowd got in my way and I looked back and he was gone, “recalls Leonardo DiCaprio.

“He disappeared and I was shaken to lose a model”

After trying to find River Phoenix during the evening, the actor learned that he had gone to the Viper Room, a popular nightclub in West Hollywood. Unfortunately, it was on this evening, October 31, 1993, that River Phoenix died of a cardiac arrest, following an overdose of several drugs in front of the establishment, under the watch of his brother, Joaquin Phoenix, and Johnny Depp. A disappearance that at the time shook the film industry, but also a generation that identified with him.

“It was almost as if – I do not know how to describe it, but it’s that existential thing where I felt … it disappeared before my eyes and I was shaken to lose a great influence, this actor which we all talked about, “says Leonardo DiCaprio, who still remembers having reached out to his idol before two people separate them. The Oscar-winning actor went on to say that following the disappearance of River Phoenix, he had been cast to resume his role as Daniel Malloy in Interview with a Vampire. A role that was finally taken over by Christian Slater.

Source: Esquire