Leonardo DiCaprio started looking for an agent at the age of twelve, after being inspired to pursue an acting career by Adam Farrar, his actor/producer stepbrother. Leonardo started off appearing in television commercials and educational films, however he got his big break in 1990 after being cast in the TV series Parenthood, alongside Tobey Maguire.

In 1991, Leo became a cast member on the TV show Growing Pains. His first breakthrough into film was in 1992, when he was cast alongside Robert De Niro and Ellen Barkin is This Boy’s Life. The role received rave reviews, as did DiCaprio’s performance, and he was then cast as a mentally handicapped brother to Johnny Depp in What’s Eating Gilbert Grape. This role earned him both an Oscar and Golden Globe nomination for best supporting actor.

In the years that followed, the films kept rolling in. His roles included titles such as The Quick and the Dead, Total Eclipse, The Basketball Diaries, and Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo and Juliet. The film that took Leo over the edge and into the realm of super-stardom was the 1997 blockbuster Titanic. It was the highest grossing film of all time and won a whopping eleven Oscars. Leonardo quickly became a teenage heartthrob.

From 2000 onwards, DiCaprio starred in hit after hit. In 2002, he starred in Gangs of New York, and Catch Me If You Can, both which were critically acclaimed films. He teamed up with Martin Scorsese again for the biopic The Aviator, which earned DiCaprio his second Academy Award nomination.

His next big film was in 2006, another Scorsese film The Departed, then in December 2006 Blood Diamond was released, for which DiCaprio received enormous amounts of praise for the South African Afrikaner accent used throughout his performance. He has another six films to be released in 2009.

Throughout his career, Leonardo has dated the likes of Gisele Bündchen and Helena Christensen, and dated Bar Rafaeli on and off from 2005 – 2008.