For Academy Award winners and long-time collaborators Leonardo DiCaprio and Martin Scorsese, a dissection of their creative processes over dinner is no strange occasion. Beyond being filmmaking partners, the two are also friends, with DiCaprio telling TIME in an interview that Scorsese’s Wolf of Wall Street was one of the “most free and exciting and spontaneous and hilarious film productions I’ve ever been a part of. I’ve never seen Martin Scorsese that happy on a set in my life.” So it was only natural for Scorsese to join Dicaprio, TIME’s 2025 “Entertainer of the Year,” in conversation onstage at the “A Year in TIME” event in New York City on Dec. 10.
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Leading up to the rollout of TIME’s Person of the Year issue, “A Year in TIME” also featured conversations with 2025 “CEO of the Year” Neal Mohan and “Athlete of the Year” A’ja Wilson as well as a performance by the artists behind “Breakthrough of the Year” KPop Demon Hunters.
Closing the night, DiCaprio and Scorsese reflected on their work, peeled back the curtains on their partnership, and looked forward to their seventh joint project—following Killers of the Flower Moon, Wolf of Wall Street, Shutter Island, The Departed, The Aviator, and Gangs of New York—the ghost story What Happens at Night, which starts filming in February.
DiCaprio, who told TIME that he views acting as a marathon, not a sprint, has built out a storied and enviable filmography, earning seven Oscar nominations and one win. Throughout DiCaprio’s career, he has held a special reverence for Scorsese, even thanking the filmmaker during his 2016 Best Actor acceptance speech, which honored his performance in the Alejandro González Iñárritu-directed The Revenant.
DiCaprio told Scorsese that their experiences together have carried into his work with other filmmakers, including most recently Paul Thomas Anderson. Anderson’s 2025 film One Battle After Another, a loose adaptation of the 1990 novel Vineland that centered around late 60s radicalism, starred DiCaprio as a washed-up revolutionary. The film and DiCaprio’s lead performance have both become Oscar favorites for next year.
Recalling how his relationship with Scorsese started, DiCaprio said, “At 18 years old, he said to me, ‘Hey kid, great job on Gilbert Grape,’ on the way out of a party.” Since then, “our process is something that developed over time.”
Working together on Gangs of New York, which Scorsese described affectionately as “chaotic,” kicked off the duo’s partnership. By the time they worked on Wolf of Wall Street, which Scorsese said DiCaprio convinced him to do, the two had trusted each other and felt comfortable enough to have debates about the approach and direction of the film. Just like any other intimate relationship, they’ve learned to understand the other’s perspective. “Marty’s very obsessive as a filmmaker, he thinks about every single detail,” DiCaprio said. “Over the years, I’ve learned the times when there’s a malleability and ways to pivot in the storyline, but I’ve also learned the times where you have a specific shot list.”
“There’s going to be specific times that tell you what I need directly. It’s gotta be this way,” Scorsese explained. “But if you bring life to it, you gotta be open to letting the soul of the picture come through.”
And the soul of the movie is different with every story. For example, although both The Departed and The Wolf of Wall Street explore similar concepts of “moral ground zero,” the character’s journey, their motivation and what they worship, all influence the final form their story takes.
“Marty said many times that plot is irrelevant to him. He wants to follow the soul of that certain character, and all the plot mechanics or how things work out are sort of secondary,” DiCaprio said. Turning to Scorsese, he added: “to see your trust in me through the years to take on these certain characters and sort of follow that dynamic and go with the soul of the character, has been extraordinary.”
A Year in TIME was presented by Rolex, American Family Insurance, Serum Institute of India, La Croix, and The Macallan.
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