Leonardo DiCaprio once entertained the idea of quitting Hollywood to take up protesting the fossil fuel industry, as well as becoming a full-time environmental activist.
“The Revenant” star told The Sunday Times that were it not for the benefits and high profile platform associated with acting, he would be a professional climate change activist.
“I had a friend say, ‘Well, if you’re really this passionate about environmentalism, quit acting,” DiCaprio said, referring to whether he would ever give up Tinsel Town for green halls of environmental activism.
The actor continued: “But you soon realize that one hand shakes the other, and being an artist gives you a platform. Not that necessarily people will take anything that I say seriously, but it gives you a voice.”
The Oscar-nominated actor demurred when reporters asked whether he would be willing to bring children into a world supposedly so close to the precipice of environmental disaster.
“Do you mean do I want to bring children into a world like this?” DiCaprio asked. “If it happens, it happens. I’d prefer not to get into specifics about it, just because then it becomes something that’s misquoted. But, yeah. I don’t know. To articulate how I feel about it is just gonna be misunderstood.”
“The Wolf of Wall Street” actor has made waves recently for his high-profile confabs with Pope Francis, as well as his willingness to excoriate coal-companies and the fossil fuel industry for supposedly using greedy ambitions to destroy the climate.
“We simply cannot afford to allow the corporate greed of the coal, oil and gas industries to determine the future of humanity. Those entities with a financial interest in preserving this destructive system have denied and even covered-up the evidence of our changing climate,” the actor said last month at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
“Enough is enough. You know better. The world knows better. History will place the blame for this devastation squarely at their feet,” he added.
Less than a week after his talk at the World Economic Forum, DiCaprio traveled to The Vatican to have a private meeting with the Francis.
DiCaprio presented the pontiff with a check from his environmental group, The Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation, for Francis’s charitable works, Reuters reported in January.
DiCaprio is nominated for Best Actor Academy Award for his role in “The Revenant.”
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