Benicio del Toro Reveals What It Was Like Working with Leonardo DiCaprio After ‘Admiring’ Him ‘for Decades’ 

The two actors costar in the upcoming movie ‘One Battle After Another,’ which hits theaters on Sept. 26

Benicio del Toro and Leonardo DiCaprio

Benicio del Toro; Leonardo DiCaprio. 

Benicio del Toro is opening up about what it was like working with fellow screen icon Leonardo DiCaprio on their latest movie, One Battle After Another.

Del Toro, 58, caught up with PEOPLE exclusively during the film’s L.A. premiere at the TCL Chinese Theatre in Hollywood on Sept. 8. During the conversation, the actor revealed that he had been “admiring” DiCaprio’s work for decades before they finally collaborated. He also shared that he ultimately shaped his own performance in the movie around what DiCaprio, 50, brought to each scene.

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“With Leo, you just let him bring the character, and you just … he’s the story. So for me […] with Leo, it’s like, work around him and just [make] sure that we fed the story with my character in it,” del Toro says.

He adds, “And Leo is one of those actors that I’ve been admiring for decades, and I never had a chance to work with. So getting this chance to work with him was a great experience and a great opportunity for me, and I hope he feels the same way.”

One Battle After Another - Official Trailer.

Leonardo DiCaprio (left) and Benicio del Toro in ‘One Battle After Another’.Warner Bros/Youtube

DiCaprio also spoke to PEOPLE exclusively at the premiere, revealing that he was eager to work on the project — especially because he is such a fan of the film’s writer and director, Paul Thomas Anderson.

“Ever since I met Paul early on and I saw Boogie Nights, I’ve been an obsessive fan of his work, watched all his movies,” DiCaprio says.

“And I was just saying his films ruminate in my mind, and they’re conversation pieces with my friends. They last. Awards can come and go. Accolades, box office can come and go, but those pieces of art — that you still talk about and still think about and still question — those are the films that we strive for as an actor. And Paul is the dude of our generation that does them,” he continues.

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One Battle After Another, which also stars Sean Penn, Teyana Taylor and Regina Hall, follows a group of former revolutionaries as they work together to save one of their now-grown daughters, per the film’s IMDb synopsis.

DiCaprio described the project as “an incredibly epic movie [that] has such scope and scale” while appearing at CinemaCon 2025 in April to tease the film.

“A lot of writer-directors are incredibly rigid, but his [Anderon’s] ability to work with actors is so unique,” he added, calling it an “honor” to work with the filmmaker.

One Battle After Another hits theaters nationwide on Sept. 26.