Leo and Scorsese are flying high

For a film that deals heavily in flying aircraft at great speed, it's ironic that neither both The Aviator's star Leonardo DiCaprio and director Martin Scorsese are particularly keen on flying.

"Well, being up there in the sky, cocooned from the rest of the world was Hughes' favourite place to be," ponders DiCaprio. "But I don't fancy flying like that at all. I got to simulate it, which was fun, but there was no way the insurance company would allow me to fly for the first time in an antique warplane. Just no way!"

Looking pale and tired at the London press conference, perhaps due to the unrelenting promotional duties for the film, or alternatively due to a heavy night on the tiles (as reported by the tabloids), Leonardo nevertheless perks up when speaking about the legendary character of Howard Hughes, who he's brought to the big screen in Scorsese's The Aviator.

Arriving on these shores smothered in a thick coating of Oscar-buzz (it's an odds-on bet that Scorsese will finally pick up Best Director and that DiCaprio will at least get a Best Actor nomination), the film delves into entertainment and aviation mogul Howard Hughes' life during the Thirties and Forties, when he was at the top of his game.

His future as an eccentric hotel recluse, wracked by obsessive-compulsive disorder is effectively foreshadowed in the movie, but Scorsese, who admits he's 'very phobic' about flying, chose to steer clear of Hughes' desperate latter years and instead recreates the heady pre-war days of his achievements.

"One of the reasons I never dealt with the story before is that it was rather daunting," explains Scorsese, in his Woody Allen-esque chatter. "So what I liked about John Logan's script was what it left out rather than trying to include everything. For example, instead of trying to cover all [Hughes'] women — and there were a number - we just focused on one, Katharine Hepburn."

DiCaprio concurs with the legendary director, admitting that his initial perception of Hughes was of the latter-day recluse. "I knew of this almost 'Wolfman'-like, monstrous figure locked away in a hotel room in Vegas, and how he became like that was something that fascinated me," he explains. "More than trying to portray an icon, I became obsessed with wanting to play him and dealing with the onset of his madness. We weren't after showing an 'authentic' Howard Hughes, but more creating our own character."

Scorsese's films have often dealt with lone male protagonists, either striving for society’s acceptance or battling against the rest of the world. Travis Bickle in Taxi Driver, Jake La Motta in Raging Bull and Charlie Cappa in Mean Streets fit this mould, as does Hughes, whose extraordinary endeavours belied his own inner struggles with perfectionism and OCD. And Scorsese, who is just as passionate about his subject at 62 than a man half his age, acknowledges that it was Hughes's personal journey that hooked him most.

"Hughes's story is like that of a Greek tragedy, it's the rise and fall of an emperor," he emphatically illustrates. Warming to his allegory, he likens Hughes to the Minotaur, who was held prisoner by the Labyrinth, except in Hughes's case, the Labyrinth was of his own creation — his OCD.

In contrast with the talkative Scorsese, it's difficult to draw DiCaprio on any other subject apart from that of his role as the playboy billionaire. Evidently cagey of sharing anything with the press since the crazy days of Titanic and world-wide Leo-mania, the 30-year-old actor refutes any likeness between the madness of Hughes and the perils of his own fame.