Can Leonardo DiCaprio Dance?

Leonardo DiCaprio is known for playing many powerful, unconventional roles, as well as for being a film producer and an active environmentalist. But can this world-famous actor dance, too?

Leonardo DiCaprio can dance in many different styles, such as tap dancing, shimmying, pop and locking, and more. DiCaprio was a breakdancer when he was young, but decided to pursue acting instead.

Read on to find out more about DiCaprio’s background in dancing and to learn about his many different moves.

DiCaprio’s Breakdancing Background

DiCaprio’s career in acting started very early on and was often his focus instead of school. He loved doing different impressions of different people and characters, but acting wasn’t his only skill when he was young.

In an interview with Oprah Winfrey in 2004, DiCaprio talked about how he almost quit acting to focus on breakdancing when he was 11. And apparently, he was good. 

In a small German dance competition, DiCaprio took home second place with his breakdancing moves. While it’s a good thing he stuck with acting and turned out many blockbuster hits like The Revenant, Inception, a modern adaptation of Romeo + Juliet, and more, it’s interesting to learn that he could have risen to stardom through another avenue.

Remember Mark Wahlberg’s breakdancing? It earned him the nickname Marky Mark, which he went by on stage. DiCaprio got his own breakdancing nickname–apparently, he went by “Noodle.”

“That’s from way, way back when I was a little kid in my pop-locking days,” DiCaprio said, in response to his old nickname. 

So he’s got the dancing experience, but can he dance now?

Showing Off His Moves

Fortunately, he’s had many opportunities to let loose in different movie scenes and at many events. Just as fortunately, many movie clips and other videos of him dancing have made it to Youtube, so we can really answer the question of whether or not DiCaprio can dance.

After watching the clips, it’s not so much a question of if he can do it, but rather if he can do it well. And the answer, for some styles, is yes.

In Titanic, the film that really jump-started his acting career, his character, Jack, takes Rose, who is played by Kate Winslet, to a party that the crew is throwing in this scene. They dance a sort of tap dancing or Irish jig routine, and both DiCaprio and Winslet look like they’re having a great time filming it.

So he can jig, and he can also do… whatever this is, in a celebratory scene of The Wolf of Wall Street. It looks a bit like a throwback to his pop-locking days as a breakdancer, and again looks like a whole lot of fun for the actors. It’s also completely in-character for DiCaprio’s portrayal of Jordan Belfort.

He also dances for a scene in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. Well, actually, it might be more of a shimmy, and the 50s aesthetic means he’s ready to groove at the local hop. Shimmy or not, he definitely pulls it off, and according to this user’s post, it’s because he moves like Bobby Banas.

While playing the poignant role of Jay Gatsby in The Great Gatsby, DiCaprio also proved that he could slow dance with the best of them on top of his other moves. 

There are some definite differences between DiCaprio’s dancing on screen and his unedited dancing in person. For example, there is this post about DiCaprio bopping along to the music at Coachella in 2014. One thing is for certain: his hips don’t lie.

His dance moves have even convinced some that he’d win the reality TV competition Dancing with the Stars.

There’s a lot more to DiCaprio than meets the eye–aside from being a fantastic, talented actor, film producer, and environmental activist, he really doesn’t hold back when it comes to showing off his moves. Here’s to hoping he never stops dancing!

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