Coming off the success of their movie “One Battle After Another,” actors Leonardo DiCaprio, Sean Penn, and Benicio del Toro were honored Monday night at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival.
The actors were each presented with the Hammond Cinema Vanguard Award.
The event was moderated by movie critic Pete Hammond, for whom the award is named.
In his opening comments, Hammond praised the actors for their work in “One Battle After Another,” and compared it to that done by Marlon Brando, Al Pacino and James Caan in “The Godfather.”
“This is a movie that’s going to live on like that one, believe me,” Hammond told the crowd.
During the presentation, Hammond sat down with the trio and showed clips of their past performances.
For DiCaprio, he showed scenes from “What’s Eating Gilbert Grape,” “The Revenant,” and “The Wolf of Wall Street.”
DiCaprio said he was interested in the story of disgraced stockbroker Jordan Belfort, on whom the movie is based. Belfort pleaded guilty to securities fraud and money laundering in 1999.
DiCaprio said that he was inspired by Occupy Wall Street and news of the greed, excess, and damage coming out at the time. He eventually took the story to director Martin Scorsese as an idea for a movie.
DiCaprio said he spent months around Belfort to learn more about him.
“That (movie) was misunderstood by certain people as a glorification of greed or that culture,” DiCaprio said. “But it was meant to make a comment on something innate in us as human.”
He also said that working with Paul Thomas Anderson, who directed “One Battle After Another,” has been something he wanted to do for years.
DiCaprio met him when the director was casting his 1997 movie “Boogie Nights.” He was supposed to play the character Dirk Diggler, but their schedules did not work out.
Hammond also showed a variety of movies featuring Penn, including “Hurly Burly,” “All the King’s Men,” and “Milk.”
Also shown were clips of Penn as Jeff Spicoli in “Fast Times at Ridgemont High,” which drew cheers from the crowd.
Hammond credited Penn for his portrayal of Harvey Milk, the first gay man to run for public office in California. Milk was elected to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, and was assassinated in 1978.
Penn said that he spent months listening to speeches, interviews and documentary footage of Milk. He said he would have his speeches on in the background wherever he was living for months.
“I grew an incredible affection for this guy that I…would never get to meet,” Penn said. “There was something just moving about him.”
Hammond also discussed del Toro’s early career and start as Duke the Dog-Faced Boy in the 1988 comedy “Big Top Pee Wee.”
Del Toro also spoke about choosing his acting name, and how people in Hollywood tried to change his name to “Benny Del.”
DiCaprio said his acting name was supposed to be Lenny Williams, but his dad told him, “over my dead body.”
The moderator showed clips of del Toro in “Traffic,” “The Pledge,” and “21 Grams.” Also shown was a scene from “The Phoenician Scheme,” a dark comedy where del Toro plays businessman and arms dealer Zsa-Zsa Korda.
Del Toro said he was drawn to the movie because of the writing.
“Wes Anderson is a very good writer,” del Toro explained. “And it makes it really exciting to try to bite the words and get behind them.”
At the end of the night, Paul Thomas Anderson came out on stage to present the awards to the three men. He spoke about how he had been plotting for the day he could work with all three of them on one movie.
He also told the audience about his respect for each actor, and called them “great men, great friends.”
“If you like your movie stars old-fashioned, with talent, some mystery, some class, a little bit of unpredictable danger, then here are three of a dying breed,” he said.
“So, cherish them while they’re still here.”
