Leonardo DiCaprio 'pushed' in the edit room to have his emotional final line put in 'Don't Look Up'
Netflix
- Adam McKay said it was a visit by DiCaprio in the edit room that led to the final line being used.
- DiCaprio was there and said, "Don't you have to try that line?'" McKay told Insider.
- DiCaprio came up with the "we really did have everything" line while on set.
"Don't Look Up" director Adam McKay credits Leonardo DiCaprio's visit to the editing room for the poignant final line at the end of the movie.
As the Earth's doom approaches, DiCaprio's character Randall Mindy turns to his loved ones around the room and says: "We really did have everything, didn't we? I mean, when you think about it."
"In the edit, it was Leo who pushed us to put the line in," McKay told Insider.
"The line was so devastating," McKay continued. "We were trying to get the balance of that ending just right. You don't want to traumatize the audience but you want it to hit them. So we didn't have that line in, and this is nearing final cut. We don't have much time left."
Around the time McKay and editor Hank Corwin were frantically working on the ending, DiCaprio showed up for a visit, the director said.
"Leo was there and said, 'Don't you have to try that line? It really felt powerful when we did it,'" McKay recalled, referring to the "we really did have everything" line.
"I was afraid to use it and we put it before a test screening and it just landed," McKay said. "So I thanked Leo for pushing me on that. That's really the line of the movie."
Netflix
It's a line that McKay previously told Variety wasn't in the original script. He said DiCaprio came up with it on the day of shooting the dinner scene.
McKay revealed to Insider what the original line was in the script, which was written for Lawrence's character.
"Originally the line was Jen saying 'Well, we tried,'" McKay said. "And it was Leo who was like, 'No, it feels like it needs to be something else.' So he didn't just come up with it, he came into the edit and told us to try it."
"Don't Look Up" is currently available on Netflix.