This VOD Spotlight takes a peak at the making of The Wolf of Wall Street.”
Jordan Belfort was a wealthy stockbroker in the 90s who was eventually convicted of fraud and sent to prison. His memoir, The Wolf of Wall Street, was made into a movie directed by Martin Scorsese. Scorsese had one condition for directing the movie The Wolf of Wall Street: He insisted on being able to really display the full extent of the over-the-top life of indulgence and excess that he read about in Jordan Belfort’s book and in the screenplay written by Terrence Winter. “I had to have total freedom with the cast and crew to do what I needed, which meant we all decided we were going to go all the way,” Scorsese says.
To that end, Scorsese used several methods to tell Belfort’s story and depict the decadence that went along with it. He encouraged the cast to improvise and used unusual editing techniques to depict the differences between Belfort in a sober state of mind and when he was under the influence of drugs and/or alcohol.
Leonardo DiCaprio, who plays Belfort in the film, discussed the filming of a Quaalude trip experienced by his character and Donnie Azoff, his partner (played by Jonah Hill). “Marty created this insanely hilarious, very intense and terrifying-at-times sequence where both Jonah and I are just completely obliterated. I remember Jonah looked at me and said, ‘This is the most insane thing I’ve ever done in my entire life.’”
From the sound of it, that was not the only unusual moment on the set. Margot Robbie, playing Belfort’s second wife, Naomi, has revealed that she accidentally slapped DiCaprio more violently than she intended to while shooting a scene. When it happened, there was a stunned silence on the set and then everyone laughed. She feared that DiCaprio would sue her and she apologized, but he was impressed with her courage and asked her to hit him again. Something similar happened when Hill’s character was hit so hard that his prosthetic teeth split and flew out of his mouth. Scorsese proceeded to film Hill’s face swelling in real time. Finally, DiCaprio injured himself while filming an improvised scene in which he is attempting to get into his car while overdosed on Quaaludes. In his first attempt at the scene, he strained his back and was unable to perform the stunt again.
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The Wolf of Wall Street is available starting March 25 on Video On Demand. Check your cable system for availability.