From heart-throb to heavyweight

In a rollercoaster film awards season with no clear favourite in the Oscars best picture race, there is one sure bet – Leonardo DiCaprio, one of the world’s biggest celebrities, will finally take home the best actor statuette on Sunday.

DiCaprio’s fifth acting Oscar nomination, for his role as a fur trapper bent on revenge in The Revenant, will prove the charm, awards pundits say, and crown the actor’s transformation from teen heart-throb to Hollywood heavyweight.
“There are cases when a particular actor is seen as overdue, and this year it’s definitely Leonardo DiCaprio,” said Dave Karger, chief correspondent of movie website Fandango.
“What is great is that he is going to win for the right performance,” Karger said.
Twenty years after his first Oscar nomination as a blue-eyed teen in What’s Eating Gilbert Grape, DiCaprio, 41, has swept every major prize in the long Hollywood awards calendar for his role as taciturn Hugh Glass, who is left for dead in the wilderness after being mauled by a bear.
The actor carries the two-and-a-half-hour film, which was shot in sub-zero temperatures over seven months, despite barely speaking after the bear rips out his character’s...