MANILA, Philippines—A diamond smuggler. A backpacker in search of an adventure. A brilliant con artist. A billionaire who wanted to fly. A son seeking revenge. A cruel king and his secret twin. An ill-fated bohemian artist. An undercover officer. A Shakespearean hero.

“Body of Lies” adds CIA Operative to the list of compelling characters Leonardo DiCaprio has brought to life on the big screen. In this film, DiCaprio plays Roger Ferris, an idealistic field agent fighting against terrorists in the Middle East. Described by filmmakers as “the best man US Intelligence has on the ground,” Ferris is given the task of drawing out an emerging terrorist leader.

DiCaprio talked about his character during an interview with Inquirer Super at the Four Seasons hotel in Beverly Hills. “Ferris has committed his life to stopping terrorism and is risking his life every day to do so. I saw my character as someone who was trying to do his job in the higher moral context than his boss wanted him to. This character was asked consistently to do things that he doesn’t believe in for the betterment of his country and this war on terror. My character is there, on the ground, in the thick of it, really experiencing what it’s like, taking people down, developing relationships and then destroying those relationships, making promises that the country can’t keep, all these things. And he’s mad at Hoffman’s character (played by Russell Crowe) who is sitting, driving his kids to a soccer game while simultaneously making decisions that he can’t really control or doesn’t really know the severity of.”

Complicated

In addition to his weapons and hand-to-hand combat training, Ferris has immersed himself in Middle Eastern culture and that gives him an edge. “He’s become very skilled at forging relationships and infiltrating terrorist networks,” DiCaprio added.

Things get complicated when DiCaprio’s character also has to work with Hani Pasha (played brilliantly by Mark Strong), a Jordanian intelligence officer who his character grows to respect. “He wants to do the best job he possibly can, but he’s being manipulated by both sides.”

To prepare for his role, DiCaprio read the book on which the movie was based and spent time with intelligence officers. “I did talk to people as much as I could but like I said, it’s an agency that’s shrouded in mystery, there’s only so much you can find out.”

It was especially important for him to research about torture. “I talked to an ex-head of the CIA and got information as to what a CIA agent would divulge in a situation like that, what his intentions would be, what his focus and his goals were in an extreme situation like that. To me if that scene wasn’t realistic, if it wasn’t a realistic depiction of what someone will do in that situation, the whole movie didn’t work.”

Pivotal moment

DiCaprio’s preparation paid off. “Ridley and I talked about that pivotal moment in the movie where I’m in the hands of the enemy. It had to be believable, it had to have guts, weight and intensity. It was one of the more complimented scenes for the movie and one of the most intense in the sense that we knew we had to knock it out of the park. I actually got sick after the scene for three days because there was just so much intensity put into that.”

Unlike Crowe, DiCaprio refuses to use the word “fun” to describe what it was like to work on “Body of Lies.” “People always ask, “Was it fun? Was it fun working on that movie?” I don’t know if that’s the operative word, it was challenging and interesting and all those other things, but fun isn’t always the operative word.”

DiCaprio’s role, which involved a lot of stunts, was challenging. “As far as the stunts were concerned, yeah, it was difficult, it was a very, very difficult shoot, but that’s the nature of working on a Ridley Scott movie, you have to embrace that. The pace in which he shoots is really intense, really fast paced, and you have to be prepared for anything in any given moment.”

And anything may mean running through an entire city or being chased by three helicopters or having buildings explode behind you.

Bizarre transition

DiCaprio’s co-star Russell Crowe, who has worked with director Ridley Scott on a number of films, said, “The key for any young player if they want to go and work with Ridley, you have to be prepared to bleed. It’s as simple as that.”

It was a big change for DiCaprio who had just come from shooting “Revolutionary Road,” his new film with Kate Winslet. “Working on ‘Revolutionary Road’ was like doing a 1950’s play, where we are talking about our feelings for months at a time in a small room and then I wound up in Morocco with missiles being shot at me. It was a bizarre transition but once you get accustomed to that pace you embrace it and you enjoy it and it starts to become this adrenaline-fueled work environment that you love.”

DiCaprio had to learn Arabic for the film. When asked if he still remembers some words, he said, “Absolutely none, I can’t remember a single word even to tell you the truth. But we had an Arabic coach there who was really helpful because it was more so than any accent, you have to be so exact and there’s different dialects of Arabic from country to country, so it was really really difficult. It was one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do language-wise because it comes from the throat. It’s different.”

A huge part of the movie was filmed in Morocco. “It doubled for a lot of different places.” But for DiCaprio, the film’s director plays a bigger role in motivating him than the location. “It’s more the attitude of the director that you’re working with and the environment that he wants you to be surrounded in. That’s what was great about working with Ridley. He’s like a human editing bay. He’s constantly saying to himself, “Do I believe this? Do I not believe this? Do I believe the people I’ve surrounded the main character with? Do I believe what they’re saying? Do I believe what I’m seeing through this screen?” He’s this filter, this bullsh*t filter and he trusts his own instincts on such a gut level. It’s great to work with somebody who will come in and say, ‘Okay, this entire scene is wrong. Get rid of three pages of dialogue or let’s move this outside. Whatever it is, I’m not believing it’; or ‘I am believing it. Push it to an even more extreme.’”

Mutual admiration

DiCaprio is very outspoken about his admiration for the ‘Body of Lies’ director, Ridley Scott. “It’s amazing to watch him behind the monitor or in the tent with six different monitors and cameras from every different angle and he’s just snapping from monitor to monitor, switching and he knows exactly, and really efficiently, saying ‘This is exactly what I’m going to use in the movie and everything else is a profound waste of time. Let’s just not do any of that other crap.’ And that’s the attitude that he has and you go in everyday and feel like you’ve done a day’s work and everything that you put that effort into will wind up for the most part as a part of the movie.”

Scott returns DiCaprio’s high regard. The director says of the young actor, “In the set, he’s great. Leo’s got this great ‘all-around guy’ thing. He’s funny. He can do a physical thing or he can do a comedic thing. He’s kind of elegant, really smart, and actually he’s fun to work with. It turned out very well. I’ve always been impressed by his work, but I was even more impressed than I thought I’d be. He and Russell are team players. That’s really great…apart from their obvious talent and capabilities and their intelligence. Make no mistake about it, most stars are really very intelligent. It’s partly why they hold their position. They ask the right questions, they pass on the wrong subjects and say yes to the right subjects.”

And in the case of this movie, DiCaprio said yes to a subject with a conscience. He said, “What’s interesting about this movie is that there you have a character that’s trying to live in a higher moral context, he’s trying to be a good person in an immoral world. He’s trying to be beholden to his country but at the same time realizing that his country is using him and there’s all kinds of different factors. There’s no clear cut, no good or evil in this story and there’s no clear-cut political agenda in this movie. This is a very hardcore realistic look on the war on terror and the United States, our relationships with other countries and how we represent ourselves worldwide and how other countries view us, the tactics that we use—good and bad—and it doesn’t tell an audience how to think or what to believe.”

No agenda

DiCaprio likes the fact that different people would see the movie in different ways. “It really does have pertinent topical themes but at the end of the day, each person that I talk to says, ‘Oh this is what the movie is trying to say’ or ‘There’s a lot of symbolism there’ or ‘This is making a moral comment on torture... or the war... or foreign relations..’ I hate to talk about it because then it’s like taking a political agenda and I don’t think this movie intended to be that and everyone involved is very vigilant in not wanting it to be one-sided or political in a sense that we’re trying to tell people how to feel about that state of the world.”

Like his character Ferris, it is clear to see that DiCaprio cares about the world. And strangely, in an industry where caring has become a bigger trend than plastic surgery, his concern feels sincere.

When someone brought up the topic of the presidential debate which was taking place on the night of the interview, he said, “I hope they talk about the economy. They should, for God’s sakes.”

He refused to choose sides, to name the candidate he’s chosen, saying he’s more concerned with getting young people to vote. “My big thing now, after the experience in the last two elections where I was very vocal, I’m helping out with just the voter turnout, with getting the kids to the polls. If we get enough young people, we’ll get a real consensus of what public opinion is about who should be in office. Not people who have voted a thousand times. We need to get the new generation out there who really care about these issues, who are going to adapt the policies of whoever is in office to turn out at the polls. A lot of them register but a lot of them never go and do it. In 2004, 70 percent of older people voted and only 40 percent of registered young people did. That’s ridiculous. We’re the ones that are going to have to inherit all this stuff.”

A believer in the power of information, DiCaprio’s online domain is divided into two parts—his personal site and his environmental site. “As much as people are talking about how the United States and the rest of the world are taking steps backwards, this is the age of information. I remember seeing this short clip on YouTube which was fascinating—it talked about the amount of information a person has nowadays as compared to 50 years ago or a hundred years ago and how we were so confined to our environment and products of our environment. Through the Internet and modern media we know so much more about the world than ever before and that is the truth. Has it helped us? That’s a whole other topic. The information is out there.”

Environmentally sound

Taking care of the environment is one of DiCaprio’s big passions. When asked if he thinks he’s been an effective environmental activist, he responded, “If I’m taken seriously, I have no idea. I’ve done what I can, I have my organization, I did a documentary, I’m very outspoken because I’m very passionate about it. If people take me seriously or not is beyond my control. The only thing I can really do is speak out about things that I feel are important.”

But DiCaprio does more than talk—he drives a hybrid car and lives in an environmentally sound home. “Yes, I have solar panels and all that stuff. But people find it sort of patronizing and they feel like they’re being told what to do when somebody like myself talks about the fact that I have solar panels. Not everyone can get solar panels and not everyone can drive a hybrid car. And to me it’s not about putting blame on anyone or telling anyone how to live. It’s just about saying let’s all be aware of these issues so the next time we vote, we can vote accordingly or when we buy something we realize where that product comes from or how that company does business. It’s being outspoken about issues that is going to concern everyone and everyone’s children in the future. It’s less about me and if I’m being taken seriously. It’s about the bigger picture.”

DiCaprio has a lot in common with his ‘Body of Lies’ character—intensity, passion, the desire to change the world. And the good news? His shot at making a difference doesn’t stop when the credits roll.

“Body of Lies,” which is distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures, is currently showing in theaters across the country.