Actor Leonardo DiCaprio has opened up about his latest project, ‘One Battle After Another’, and shed light on what political “extremism does on both sides.”
The Film’s Premise and Director’s Vision
The film, which was released on September 26, 2025, revolves around a group of revolutionaries who join forces to help their friend Bob Ferguson (an unsuccessful, paranoid stoner) save his daughter from an old enemy.
- The Director’s Approach: Writer-director Paul Thomas Anderson, who loosely used Thomas Pynchon’s novel Vineland as the film’s base, stated it was crucial to deliver this message without “lecturing” the audience.
- DiCaprio’s View: DiCaprio, who plays the role of Bob, said: “Paul keeps talking about the fact that if you’re going to create a political espionage thriller like this, it’s not about imposing your own ideology or your own political belief system on an audience — that’s like taking medicine.”
Blending Complexity with Comedy
The Academy winner added: “And you look back into the films that we admire, the Kubrick films like Dr. Strangelove, there’s a comedy to it, a satire to it, which makes you able to sort of hold a mirror up to where we are as a society.”
- Analyzing Extremism: The Titanic star praised Anderson’s creative skills and how he effortlessly blends complex ideas into comedy. He remarked: “[Anderson] just creates these worlds, these characters, these people that have a conviction in their ideology, their belief system, and what extremism does on both sides. And I think he very fairly analyzes what that means. What is extremism? Why can’t we communicate? Why don’t we want to understand each other?”
- Core Humanity: Leonardo DiCaprio concluded: “And I think at the core, we have these characters that have a greater deal of humanity to them, that have almost created a family together, and they realize that they’re just trying to survive. That’s the beauty of what this movie projects, I think.”
