Director Defends Leonardo DiCaprio Over Malaysian Money Scandal

Ahead of Fisher Stevens film ‘Before The Flood’, he’s spoken out about its star Leonardo DiCaprio’s foundation for embezzlement.

The Oscar-winning actor (in ‘The Revenant’) has been embroiled in controversy after his foundation was accused of siphoning $3 billion from a Malaysian sovereign wealth fund. This lead the Department of Justice to begin the process of seizing assets after it was claimed some of this money was used to fund Leo’s 2013 comedy ‘The Wolf of Wall Street’, directed by Martin Scorsese.

Speaking during the Toronto Film Festival, Fisher, who’s there for his film world premiere that sees DiCaprio travelling to 20 countries in order to combat climate change, the director was quick to defend his star.

“The guy’s trying to do good. Okay, so he had an unsavoury character in there who donated some money. What did he (DiCaprio) know? Leo did nothing wrong,” Stevens said to The Hollywood Reporter.

Stevens wanted a strong and familiar voice to front the film and believed DiCaprio was ideal: “To make a film a film, you need to have a leading man, a character… Otherwise, you’re not connected to the material,” he expressed.

DiCaprio was in attendance at TIFF, fresh from his long-awaited Oscar win earlier this year, for the screening of ‘Before The Flood’ alongside Stevens, with the film getting its global premiere on the National Geographic Channel prior to November’s US election.

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Picture credit: Insurgent Docs, Anonymous Content