INQUISITR.COM / Entertainment

Siberian Fans Are Making Leonardo DiCaprio A Homemade ‘Oscar’ For ‘The Revenant’

By Anne Sewell
Published on: 00:51 PST, Feb 7, 2016

While Leonardo DiCaprio has been nominated on several occasions for an Academy Award, somehow he just hasn’t got the goods. Now, thanks to some Russian fans, he will finally get an award, albeit a homemade one created from silver and gold trinkets.

While the “Oscar” isn’t the real deal, the statuette will reportedly be awarded to Leonardo DiCaprio whether he wins an Academy Award or not for his starring role in The Revenant.

A group of filmmakers from the far east of Russia came up with the idea and are dubbing the award the “Yakut Oscar,” in honor of the region it originates, but they do say they will come up with a better name closer to the time of handing it over to Leonardo DiCaprio in person.

The Russian state news agency Ria Novosti interviewed Tatiana Yegorova, a lecturer at the Arctic Institute of Arts and Culture. Reportedly, she is the creator of the faux “Oscar” initiative and told them the group has been receiving donations of cash toward the statuette from around 100 Leonardo DiCaprio fans in Yakutia. Apparently, they expect the silver and gold statue to cost around 100,000 rubles (around $1,300) to create.

Besides the cash, Yegorova added that some women in the area have donated their own silver and gold jewelry towards the project. Reportedly, the ladies are being encouraged, however, to keep half the jewelry so that “one half will be with Leonardo DiCaprio and one half with them.”

Reportedly, this will then make them “somehow connected with the actor,” as a spiritual initiative, according to Yegorova.

One DiCaprio fan, Karina Chiryaeva says in the video at the end of this article (in Russian), “As cinema is a mass art we believe the audience also has the right to give an award, why not? We Yakuts aren’t indifferent to creativity which is developed by us in all directions and is known around the whole world.”

“So as people who respect Leonardo DiCaprio’s creativity we decided to present him with this award.”

According to CinemaBlend, while the statuette will look very similar to the traditional Oscar statue, their version will hold a “Choron,” which is reportedly a three-legged goblet symbolizing peace, rather than the traditional sword.

Apparently this isn’t the first time DiCaprio has been offered an award by his Russian fans. When Leonardo missed out on a Best Actor award back in 2014 for The Wolf of Wall Street, a group of actors in Chelyabinsk reportedly created a cast-iron statue of a bodybuilder which they dubbed “Ascar.” However, it is unknown whether the actor ever received the statuette after he lost the Best Actor award to Matthew McConaughey.

What is interesting to note, Leonardo DiCaprio has a special link to Russia, as his maternal grandmother was Russian. In past interviews DiCaprio has referred to himself as being “half Russian.”

The Revenant star personally met with Russian President Vladimir Putin in St. Petersburg back in 2010 and reportedly Putin dubbed DiCaprio a “real man” after he pledged $1 million to help endangered Siberian tigers, a project close to the Russian leader’s heart.

Even more interest has been spiked recently in Russia after a number of reports have surfaced in the local media that DiCaprio will play Putin in an upcoming film. While the rumors have been denied by filmmakers, reportedly DiCaprio commented in interviews that he would “love” to play Putin and found the Russian president to be “very, very, very interesting.”

As mentioned by the Washington Post, there was a little humor doing the rounds recently when someone found a photograph of a man in the Russian armed forces who looks remarkably similar to the American actor. They went on to joke in the Russian social media that after losing out on yet another Academy Award, DiCaprio had chosen to relocate to “the only country which truly appreciates talent people.”

The photo of the Leonardo DiCaprio lookalike can be seen in the tweet below.

It remains to be seen whether Leonardo DiCaprio will finally be lucky at the upcoming Academy Awards, but the actor is sure to be the recipient of a homemade “Oscar” from his Russian fans, as seen in the video included below.

[Photo by Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty Images for DGA]

Share this article: Siberian Fans Are Making Leonardo DiCaprio A Homemade ‘Oscar’ For ‘The Revenant’
russia Academy Awards Leonardo DiCaprio
More from Inquisitr