Paul Thomas Anderson‘s newest barnstormer One Battle After Another bravely dares to ask: what if you had a dad who cared about you? If that sounds glib it’s in fitting with One Battle After Another, which is as funny as it is revolutionary, as silly as it is serious, and at its heart is a film about a stoner dad who in spite of it all will go to the ends of the Earth for his daughter. So when we sat down with Leonardo DiCaprio, who plays an ex-revolutionary father figure on an epic quest to find his daughter, we asked about his own father, the underground cartoonist George DiCaprio, and how his legacy as an artist shaped DiCaprio as a performer. So was the award winner’s passion for the creative—and acting specifically—something that was influenced by his own father’s outsider career path.cnx.cmd.push(function() {cnx({playerId: "106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530",}).render("0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796");});“Absolutely, and he continues to do so, DiCaprio says emphatically during our sit down at the One Battle After Another press junket. “My father, he’s kind of the ultimate source of wisdom for me, and not just his intelligence, but his perception and his ability to look at a certain subject matter through different lenses. I oftentimes still read scripts with him and ask him his thoughts, because he’s got such a unique perspective.” It’s a relationship that the Oscar-winning actor tells us has shaped his entire career. “He really was a great motivator for me when I was a young actor,” DiCaprio continues. “I started to try to get an agent when I was 10 or 11 or 12 years old. I was a break dancer and I had a messed up haircut, and all the agents rejected me. And [he gave me] that reinforcement of ‘you’re going to have your time.’”There was also, Dicaprio shares, “A guidance of ‘this is what real filmmaking is.’” Describing how his father would “take me to see actors and films and say, ‘This is what the art form is all about. And those are great actors. Watch this stuff.’ So I can’t say enough about how much he’s influenced what I’ve done.”When it came to his co-star Benicio del Toro, it was a childhood being raised by lawyers that had carved his career out of his younger life.“My dad was a criminal lawyer,” del Toro tells us. “My mom as well. I think they were actors in a way, you have to convince people.” But when it comes to their biggest influence it’s one of del Toro’s secret talents that he praises his father for. “I had to do a lot of driving,” del Toro laughs. “My dad had these big boat cars, you know, so I would sneak out and take the car, and you better not put a scratch on that car.” That experience allowed del Toro to proudly joke to his co-star that he “can park an American big boat. I can park a car,” he smiles. “That’s my claim to fame. But you know I learned from my dad because he was a great driver. My dad really could park an 18-wheeler, right there.”On the other side of the dark comedy coin that is One Battle After Another is a story about motherhood, being a daughter, and what it means to survive as Black woman in America. For multi-hyphenate Teyana Taylor, who is already stirring up awards talk for her incredible performance as Perfidia Beverly Hills, a revolutionary and mother who has to make an impossible decision after being caught by Sean Penn’s abusive Col. Steven J. Lockjaw. Preparing for the action-packed and emotional role was a journey, but one that Taylor says she embraced. “What I did was dive into the things that I can relate to. I seen this woman living in survival mode, and I’ve been in that place before, knowing the feeling of ‘I’m all I got’ you know, and that was Perfidia.”Another thing about the character that immediately stood out to the actress was the exploration of postpartum depression. “As a mother of two, who has experienced that—not the same exact thing, because every mother experiences something different—I love that he shed light on that, and he really gave me the freedom to to play in it,” Taylor shares. “So it was really amazing preparing for this, because I seen so much of myself in the parts that I did agree with and then even the parts [of her] that I didn’t agree with, I was able to have grace for her and have compassion for her, because those things start from not feeling seen, not feeling heard.” Perfidia and Bob’s onscreen daughter Baby Sharleen grows up into Willa, who is raised by Bob after her mother disappears from a witness protection program. It’s a challenging first feature role for newcomer Chase Infiniti, who meets it with aplomb by making Willa a believable teen and compelling heroine. But how do you prepare to play a character who has never met her mother? It began with separation that echoed the pair’s narrative in the volatile feature. “While we were shooting, and even before we started shooting, I didn’t meet Teyana until further down the line. So when I started to actually build Willa’s character, I was hearing stories and chatter about her from people like Paul [Thomas Anderson] and Leo.”Infiniti continues. “So even though I’m a bit upset I didn’t get to meet [Teyana] for a long time, it really helped hone into the character. Because I didn’t know her, but I’d heard all these wonderful things about her, all of these stories from other people that I was interacting with on set that really helped me drop down into that experience.” One of the most intriguing roles in the movie falls to comedy stalwart Regina Hall as Perfidia’s close friend Deandra. Just like her onscreen conspirator, Hall is also already in awards conversations—and anyone who has seen Support the Girls shouldn’t be surprised—for a heartwrenching performance as the woman that connects the disparate mother and daughter. “Deandra does love Perfidia,” Hall explains. “They fought a long fight together, and they believed in the same things, and maybe she knows that somewhere she went a little left. Life happens. And she does understand why she did what she did. But there is this child…”Recalling a scene that ended up on the cutting floor that she felt shows the closeness between the two women and what their relationship means in regards to Willa, Hall says, “There’s a scene that’s not in the movie where she’s actually the one that calls me and says, in code words, take care of those baby socks for me. And then I say, ‘I promise,’ and then it cuts from that scene to Deandra at the house packing like you gotta go. It’s time to go, so when she comes back to get Willa, you know, it’s full circle for their friendship and for the love of the child.”The post Leonardo DiCaprio Opens Up About His Father’s Influence: ‘I Still Read Scripts with Him’ appeared first on Den of Geek.