How Leonardo DiCaprio Feels About Teyana Taylor Calling Him “Pops"

The Oscar winner—who nearly missed the Critics Choice Awards due to being stuck in St. Barts after celebrating New Year's there—went on to praise their director Paul.

"It's been a 25-year journey to get to work with this great visionary director and we all kinda just followed his lead," Leo shared. "He's been developing this story for over 20 years, and it shows up on screen the detail, the complexity of the characters, and it's so pertinent to the world we live in. We're all just a team and so excited to get to collaborate."

"It was a real collaboration, this film," he added. "It really was."

His comments reflected what he had previously said about why he ultimately decided to take on this latest role.

“Ultimately, wanting to do this movie was pretty simple,” Leo shared with the director during a joint Esquire interview in August, “I’ve been wanting to work with you—Paul—for something like twenty years now, and I loved this idea of the washed-up revolutionary trying to erase his past and disappear and try and live some sort of normal life raising his daughter.”

The Titanic actor joked, “It was fun creating a character that’s weirdly a hybrid of both political parties and beliefs—and certainly not Father of the Year.”

The role was an interesting one for Leo to take on, as he explained that Pat was the hero of the film, but not in the traditional sense. 

“My character is not your typical heroic Terminator-type character that has any superpower, any special ability,” he explained, “but he’s just relentless.”

“We had a lot of talks about how to create a heroic character and bring a sense of reality,” Leo added, “and not have it be the typical choices that we’ve always seen.”

To see more stars at the 2026 Critics Choice Awards, keep reading.

(E! and USA Network are both part of Versant Media.)