The 41-year-old actor was working on the set of his latest movie, The Revenant – directed by Alejandro González Iñárritu – when the crew got caught in horrific weather conditions that lasted for an hour in temperatures that dropped to minus 40.
He said: ”We were doing an emotional scene, and then this windstorm came, and it was just brutal. We were out there for an hour, and I said, ‘Alejandro, what the hell are we doing?’ ”
Despite the freezing conditions, the director encouraged the cast of the Western thriller to forget about the cold climate.
He said: ”It’s a mental state. Weather doesn’t exist.”
Leonardo lived to tell the tale and admitted he was extremely grateful for a hot air blower on set which he nicknamed ”the octopus.”
Speaking at a Q&A session in New York, he said: ”We actually had a machine on set, I nicknamed it the octopus because it was like a giant hot air blower with eight tentacles, and we’d all rush up to it and thaw our hands.” He added: ”This is the most difficult film, I think, that any of us have ever done.”
Other cast members include Tom Hardy, Domhnall Gleeson and Will Poulter.