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WHAT'S EATING 
GILBERT GRAPE? 

1993

Gilbert Grape
 






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Script

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Director: Lasse Hallström

Writers:   Peter Hedges (novel and screenplay)

With: Johnny Depp, Leonardo DiCaprio, Juliette Lewis, Mary Steenburgen, Darlene Cates, Laura Harrington, Mary Kate Schellhardt, Kevin Tighe, John C. Reilly, Crispin Glover

Tagline: "Arnie knows a secret. His big brother Gilbert is the greatest person on the planet.”

Rate: PG-13




Awards and nominations:

 

  • 1994 ACADEMY AWARDS (OSCAR):
    Best Actor in a Supporting Role: Leonardo DiCaprio (Nominated)
  • 1994 CHICAGO FILM CRITICS ASSOCIATION AWARDS:
    Most Promising Actor: Leonardo DiCaprio (Won)
  • 1994 GOLDEN GLOBE AWARDS:
    Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role in a Motion Picture: Leonardo DiCaprio (Nominated)
  • 1995 GUILD OF GERMAN ART HOUSE CINEMAS:
    Guild Film Award, Silver - Foreign Film: Lasse Hallström (Won)
  • 1993 NATIONAL BOARD OF REVIEW:
    Best Supporting Actor: Leonardo DiCaprio (Won)

 

 







 





 

 



















 

SYNOPSIS

Charmingly offbeat and low-key, What’s Eating Gilbert Grape focuses on the plight of a young man who’d love nothing more than to leave his dysfunctional family and sleepy rural community. But Gilbert, played with warmth and sensitivity by Johnny Depp, is restrained by a sense of duty to his morbidly obese mother (Darlene Cates) and mentally handicapped younger brother (Leonardo DiCaprio).


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QUOTES FROM JOHNNY DEPP


"My character's uneasy with people so, like, if something gets too serious on the set, like if I'm feeling, 'God, I'm doing a scene,' Lasse automatically starts talking about radishes to get me back into how uncomfortable my character is. Lasse says stuff like, 'If a radish were up your butt, how far would it be? All the way in? Halfway? Just entering?' A radish is a pretty solid image, you know? So, that's how he communicates. He's allergic to bullshit."
Johnny Depp, Movieline Magazine, 4-1993
"Well, as it is with most of my movies, the films that I've done, and there's no disrespect for the crew or the filmmakers or the writers or anything like that. It's nothing to do with them. I always figure that once I've wrapped on a film, my job is done. Anything beyond that is none of my business. So, if I can avoid seeing the final product, I like to, because then all I have in my head is the experience and I feel very good about the experience. Gilbert Grape was a rough time for me just in terms of I don't know where I was, emotionally or psychologically."
Johnny Depp, UGO.com 2003
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Oops

Despite the fact that animal protection agents were onset to monitor the wellbeing of the grasshopper Arnie decapitates in the letterbox, Leonardo DiCaprio accidentally killed it

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"I was really touched and pleased that people liked the film and people understood Gilbert and Arnie. I was real happy when Leo got a nomination for the Academy Awards, and I was disappointed that Darlene Cates didn't get a nomination, who played our mother. But certainly I was real pleased that people liked the movie, but I just didn't feel like I needed to see it. There's a few of 'em I haven't seen."
Johnny Depp, UGO.com 2003

 "Another time, What's Eating Gilbert Grape came on, which is a film I've never seen. And it was the opening credits and then the opening scene, and it got me to the point, I was trying to watch a little bit of it and I started to hyperventilate. I just shut the T.V. off and walked away."

Johnny Depp, UGO.com 2003

 “While filming Gilbert Grape there were times when I was really lonely but I don’t know if that had anything to do with the character I was playing, so I made myself feel that way to prepare for the film.”
Johnny Depp, Smash Hits, 7-1993

 “Gilbert never really had the opportunity to go and make his life. He had to take care of his mom and his retarded brother. He stayed at a very slow speed. And sometimes you play roles that are close to you, you identify with the guy. Not that you become the person, because I don’t buy into that shit at all. But this movie was a rough time for me. I poisoned myself constantly: drinking, didn’t eat right, no sleep, lots of cigarettes. It was really a lonely, really fucking lonely, time.”
Johnny Depp, US Magazine, 2-1994

"[The hair color was] Miss Clairol. I don’t remember the number, just that it was redder than red. It had to do with this guy I grew up with, a friend named Bones, who saved my life once. I was doing a really ridiculous thing – I was blowing fire with gasoline in my mouth [ shakes his head], and I lit my face on fire. I couldn’t get it out, and Bones put it out. Bones kind of reminded me of Gilbert."

Johnny Depp, US Magazine, 2-1994

 "There are elements of being that age and going through that which parallel what Gilbert’s experiences might have been. It’s traumatic for everybody, and especially for a wife. My mom wasn’t well. So we all pulled together and did the best we could. And everything worked out fine. Everybody is happy as... a big ball of snot."
Johnny Depp, US Magazine, 2-1994

“On the surface, Gilbert Grape would seem like a pretty normal guy, but I was interested in what was going on underneath, in the hostility and rage that he has and that he’s only able to show a couple of times in the film. I understand the feeling of being stuck in a place, whether it’s geographical or emotional. I can understand the rage with wanting to completely escape from it and from everybody and everything you know and start a new life.”
Johnny Depp, Sky Magazine, 4-1994

“The first time I met Darlene [Cates], I looked beyond her size and I saw this sweet face and these soulful eyes and I thought she was so beautiful. I found her to be very brave to be able to unravel her emotional life in front of the whole world – and this from someone who never acted before!”
Johnny Depp, Sky Magazine, 4-1994

“It was a hard time for me -- I was just having a weird time myself, personally, which kind of helped me creatively. We were shooting in Austin, Texas, which to me seems what America  must have been in the 1950s. But I was trying to escape from my own brain: I didn’t know what was right and what was wrong; I didn’t know who was who and who wasn’t... It was very confusing. I don’t know if I subconsciously made myself miserable for a little bit because I knew that’s what the character needed, or if it was just what I had to deal with at that particular time. I was drinking a lot. I poisoned myself regularly. But I’ve been straight now for about five months.”
Johnny Depp, Sky Magazine, 4-1994

“It's always taxing to play something that's closer to reality. Those four months were a very difficult time in my life. I just felt awful."
Johnny Depp, Vogue Magazine, 9-1994



 QUOTES FROM OTHERS

"Depp has almost a burning desire to make ugly choices. He comes with a physical beauty that’s just astonishing, and at the same time he has no interest in being that... When I met him, he had this really long hair. He showed up at the meeting, very quiet, really shy, and was teaching us magic tricks. I thought, 'I suppose he could be Gilbert...'”
Peter Hedges, author

“He was extremely like Gilbert. But it wasn’t something Johnny was trying to do. It naturally came out of him. I never quite understood what he was going through, because it wasn’t some big emotional drama that was happening every day on the set -- but subtle things I’d see in him would make me question what was going on. There’s an element of Johnny that’s extremely nice, and extremely cool, but at the same time, he’s hard to figure out. But that’s what makes him interesting.”
Leonardo DiCaprio

"Depp has real ambitions, but he is deeply afraid of being considered pretentious."

Lasse Hallström

“A lot of actors and actresses just want to be safe and look really pretty and cool in front of the camera. Johnny’s not like that. He’s in it for the work and for creating.”
Juliette Lewis , US Magazine, 1994

“Johnny is able to convey a lot of emotions and feelings without dialogue. He's a very instinctive actor and I needed someone with a face as ex­pressive as his."
Lasse Hallström

"There's a huge part of [Johnny] that's not within your reach. He doesn't casually let himself over to people and let you know who he is. If you're his oldest friend or his lover, perhaps that's not true, but for most people, I think he's both accessible and inaccessible."

Mary Steenburgen, Vogue magazine, 9-1994

 “Johnny Depp tapped the inner rage of that character and he knew even more about that character than I realized.”
Lasse Hallström, Box Office Mojo 2006


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