Leonardo DiCaprio: My propulsion to want to act as a kid was to get out of my neighbourhood

LOS ANGELES — The award-winning film star Leonardo DiCaprio developed an interest in acting because he says he wanted to "get out of (his) neighbourhood".

Speaking to Jennifer Lawrence for variety.com, DiCaprio said: "I think a lot of my propulsion to want to act as a kid was to get out of my neighbourhood.

"My stepbrother did a lot of commercials. He was like, 'Wait a minute, you can get paid to do that? I got to get out of this place.' I was (our) stage mom, pushing my parents to take me on auditions. I told them, 'This is going to be my college fund to get me money to try to have some sort of career in something.' I didn’t book anything for a while.”

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He added: “I got a Matchbox car commercial where I played a gangster with slicked back hair. I had a briefcase and I opened it up."

Asked if he went to the audition looking like a gangster, DiCaprio replied: "Yes. I slicked back my hair and I put a little leather jacket on. I booked Mickey’s Safety Club, too. An after-school special thing where you teach kids the dangers of drugs My first television show was The Outsiders. There’s my whole filmography."

Meanwhile, DiCaprio recently claimed that he believes Titanic allowed him to become the "conductor of (his) own choices," reports femalefirst.co.uk.

The actor starred alongside Kate Winslet in the record-breaking movie back in 1997, and DiCaprio said that the James Cameron-directed project changed the course of his career.

DiCaprio told Deadline: "Fully now in retrospect, I look back at that film and realise the thanks and the appreciation that I have for being a part of it, and to have been able to be in this incredibly fortunate position and not only to have been a part of that movie, but to be able to be the conductor of my own choices since."