Leonardo DiCaprio Wasn't Thrilled About Using a Flamethrower in ONCE UPON A TIME IN HOLLYWOOD

Leonardo DiCaprio’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood character Rick Dalton played a flamethrower-wielding Nazi hunter in one of his movies, The 14 Fists of McCluskey. There’s a whole story revolving around this flamethrower that is set up over the course of the film.

While watching the movie, DiCaprio seemed very comfortable using the the Flamethrower, but he wasn’t comfortable with it at all! You see, DiCaprio had to use a real flamethrower to really set some of his co-stars on fire. We see this scene in the trailer for the film.

DiCaprio was concerned that he would hurt someone, and it was the film’s co-stunt coordinator Robert Alonzo, who worked on easing DiCaprio’s concerns by having himself be set on fire first. Alonzo recalled in an interview with Huff Post:

“Leo was not very gung-ho with all the flamethrower stuff. Literally, he doesn’t want to hurt anyone. And I completely understood it. Normally you use a stunt person in that spot to be able to manage firing a flamethrower at somebody. When I did Tropic Thunder, Nick Nolte [accidentally] fired a flamethrower at me. … This time, [Leo] is actually lighting them up and holding a flame to them for about seven to eight seconds as the flamethrower is traversing back and forth around eight guys that he’s never met. That is psychologically difficult to do, so kudos to him on being able to stay in character and do that scene.”

Yeah, I could see how doing something like that would mess with your head. I’d be afraid about hurting someone as well! But DiCaprio’s fears were put to rest after some “coaxing” by supervising stunt coordinator Zoë Bell. After DiCaprio lit up Robert Alonzo and saw he was safe after the demonstration, his nerves were calmed and he went on to shoot the scene with no problems.