Leonardo DiCaprio turned down a fortune for Hocus Pocus and landed an Oscar nod instead
DiCaprio has no regrets, and has made tons of great decisions since beginning his acting career.
At 51 years old, no one can tell Leonardo DiCaprio anything about how he has handled his acting career. To this point, he has made all of the right decisions, and become one of the most notorious actors in film history in the process.
With that has come a lot of money. According to Zach Ferra of Screen Dollars , DiCaprio was the 22nd-best paid actor of all-time as of September of 2025 . That ranking may have gone up, as he has since featured in One Battler After Another and was an executive producer for The Lake .
Leonardo DiCaprio opted to focus on What's Eating Gilbert Grape instead of Hocus Pocus
DiCaprio certainly isn’t short on money, but early in his career he made a decision that may have seemed foolish at the time. Even DiCaprio himself has admitted that he was kind of crazy for turning down a role in the 1993 Disney film Hocus Pocus . During a 2014 interview with Variety , DiCaprio spoke candidly about his decision to turn down “ more money than I ever dreamed of ”.
I don’t know where the hell I got the nerve. You live in an environment where you’re influenced by people telling you to make a lot of money and strike while the iron’s hot. But if there’s one thing I’m very proud of, it’s being a young man who was sticking to my guns.
DiCaprio instead poured all of his focus into his role on What’s Eating Gilbert Grape . That ended up being an extremely wise decision, as Hocus Pocus was initially a box office bomb, and DiCaprio garnered critical acclaim for his performance as Arnie Grape .
DiCaprio earned nominations for Best Actor in a Supporting Role at the Academy Awards and the Golden Globes . It took until 2016 for DiCaprio to win his first Oscar , for his feature role on The Revenant . But if he had done Hocus Pocus instead of What’s Eating Gilbert Grape, it’s fair to wonder if that moment would have ever happened.
