Overview

• Leonardo DiCaprio tells Paul Thomas Anderson that bypassing the 1997 film Boogie Nights is his ‘‘biggest regret’’ of a 35-year career.
• He describes Boogie Nights as ‘‘a profound movie of my generation’’ and says he ‘‘can’t imagine anyone but Mark [Wahlberg]’’ in the lead role.
• DiCaprio passed on the part of Dirk Diggler because he was committed to starring in Titanic, which filmed at the same time and made him an international star.
• The admission appears in Esquire’s Mavericks of Hollywood issue, published August 14, in an interview conducted by Paul Thomas Anderson to mark their long-awaited collaboration.
• One Battle After Another opens in U.S. theaters on September 26 with DiCaprio as Bob Ferguson, a washed-up revolutionary on a mission to save his missing teenage daughter.