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Leonardo DiCaprio and Mark Wahlberg starrer The Basketball Diaries was released in 1995. The coming-of-age drama saw both characters’ friends on and off the court in the dark. Interestingly, both Hollywood actors too seemed to have a little more strained relationship.
The Basketball Diaries was an adaptation of Jim Carroll‘s autobiographical work of the same name. The film tells the story of Carroll’s teenage years as a promising high school basketball player who becomes addicted to heroin. While filming the movie Wahlberg was 25 and DiCaprio was 21.
Mark Wahlberg once spoke about the rift with Leonardo DiCaprio during his appearance at the LEAP Foundation conference at UCLA in 2018. As reported by The Hollywood Reporter, Mark said, “He didn’t want me for the part, and I didn’t think he was right for the part. We both had to really learn how to respect each other, and we earned it.”
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Back in 2013, The Mile 22 star once again spoke about the rift and explained how it all began. He said, “Leonardo was like, ‘Over my dead f**king body. Marky Mark’s not going to be in this f**king movie. Because we’d had a thing — I didn’t even realize it, [but] I was a bit of a d*ck to him at a charity basketball game. So he was like, ‘This f**king a**hole is not going to be in this movie.'”
However, Mark Wahlberg and Leonardo DiCaprio’s rift did not stay for long and soon they buried the hatchet thanks to casting director Avy Kaufman. Wahlberg said that it was the casting director who persuaded DiCaprio to read with him. “So I come in and I do the audition and I kind of look at him and he kind of looks at me, and then we do a scene, and they’re like, ‘Hmm, this f**king dude’s pretty good, right?'” he said.
Then added, “The next thing you know, boom, we’re hanging out.”
