Leonardo Dicaprio’s Unhinged Rant in Martin Scorsese’s 79%-Rated Movie Was From a Con Man’s Playbook

Leonardo DiCaprio’s frenzied monologue in The Wolf of Wall Street wasn’t just acting, it echoed the real-life tricks of Jordan Belfort.

Credit: Right image by Harald Krichel, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

In Martin Scorsese’s 2013 film The Wolf of Wall Street, Leonardo DiCaprio delivers a captivating performance as Jordan Belfort, a former stockbroker whose persuasive sales tactics and fraudulent schemes led to one of the most notorious financial scandals in history.

And one particularly memorable scene from the movie showcases DiCaprio’s character making an impromptu sales pitch that immediately captivates an investor, a moment rooted in Belfort’s real-life sales techniques.

Leonardo DiCaprio’s electrifying sales pitch offered A Glimpse into Jordan Belfort’s playbook

Leonardo DiCaprio’s portrayal of Jordan Belfort in The Wolf of Wall Street reaches a pivotal moment when he joins a modest penny-stock firm, Investors’ Center, after losing his Wall Street job in the aftermath of Black Monday.

Leonardo DiCaprio in The Wolf of Wall Street | Credit: Universal.

Tasked with selling ‘pink sheet’ stocks, Belfort makes his first cold call.

What unfolds is a masterclass in high-pressure salesmanship: he lands a $4,000 deal in one call, stunning his new colleagues with his aggressive tone, commanding presence, and smooth manipulation.

This, including other such sequences involving the phone sales pitches, was reportedly based on Belfort’s actual sales strategies, which he later detailed in his book Way of the Wolf.

Leonardo DiCaprio’s phone-selling scenes in THE WOLF OF WALL STREET were based on sales scripts and techniques from the real Jordan Belfort.

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— All The Right Movies (@ATRightMovies) May 28, 2025

He even later revealed, “I trained Leo in the use of tonality,” as per Quartz, referring to the subtle vocal inflections that make the pitch so convincing.

“Watch how perfect this looks,” he continued, noting that DiCaprio’s performance nails the key principle.

The man who inspired Martin Scorsese’s The Wolf of Wall Street, Jordan Belfort

Martin Scorsese’s The Wolf of Wall Street follows Jordan Belfort, a former stockbroker who rose to financial infamy as the founder of Stratton Oakmont, a brokerage firm notorious for manipulating penny stocks and swindling investors out of millions.

Jordan Belfort’s real story is just as captivating, and far more cautionary, as he went on to found Stratton Oakmont, a brokerage firm that would become synonymous with corruption, manipulation, and excess.

However, behind the scenes, it was nothing more than a glorified boiler room.

Brokers, under Belfort’s direction, used aggressive tactics and scripted pitches to push worthless stocks onto unsuspecting investors.

Jordan Belfort | Credit: Ralph Zuranski/CC-BY-2.0/Wikimedia Commons.

At the core of their operation was a classic pump-and-dump scheme: artificially inflating stock prices through misleading hype, then selling off shares for profit while leaving investors with massive losses.

Belfort also engaged in money laundering.

(Investopedia)

These illegal practices eventually caught up with him.

In 1999, he pleaded guilty to securities fraud and money laundering, served 22 months in federal prison, and was ordered to pay $110 million in restitution to defrauded investors.

After his release, he reinvented himself as a motivational speaker and author, writing about his experiences and sales techniques.

The Wolf of Wall Street is available to watch on Hulu in the USA.