Out of his comfort zone

But what really put the actor outside his comfort zone on "Body of Lies" was the unique professional mojo between Scott and Crowe -- a hard-charging duo that takes a perverse pride in skipping any conventional rehearsal process and who would excise huge chunks of the script just moments before the cameras rolled. For DiCaprio, thrice Oscar-nominated and something of a muse to Martin Scorsese (after starring in the director's "Gangs of New York" and "The Departed" as well as the upcoming "Shutter Island"), it wasn't easy being the odd man out. And those kind of challenges to his normal process triggered a fight-or-flight response.

"You hear it a lot in this business, that there's a 'shorthand' between an actor and a director," DiCaprio explained. "But Russell and Ridley were really accustomed to working together. It took me a few weeks to get used to that work process and into that pacing. It's just a few words then, 'Boom! Boom! Boom! Let's take that whole sequence out. You got it? All right. You agree? Great. We're gonna shoot it in 10 minutes.' "

With characteristic movie-star magnanimity -- a kind of default setting of celeb-speak that puts positive gloss on negative experiences, verging close, at times, to damnation by faint praise -- he added: "I learned a lot from that."

'Ridley's a wild man'

Scott AND Crowe mark their fourth movie pairing with "Body of Lies," which reaches theaters Friday. It's a road-tested relationship responsible for the best picture Oscar-winning "Gladiator" (2000) and the 2007 box-office smash "American Gangster" (as well as 2006's schmaltzy rom-com "A Good Year"). The director justified his methodology by pointing out that a table reading is usually enough to give the actors their "motivation." And that the shoot-now-ask-questions-later M.O. that he and Crowe have perfected allows interactions to be "a more visceral thing" in the director's view.

"I know who can do what," Scott growled. "I don't need a run-through. I know these guys are going to do their . . . crap. The real rehearsal happens real fast. You walk on the set. 'What do you think?' Usually, within 15 minutes, we're shooting."

Producer Donald DeLine was on location for much of the movie's principal photography in Morocco and the Eastern Seaboard late last year. And although he stops short of saying DiCaprio was out of his element, he witnessed the actor's gradual adjustment to Scott's ways and means. "Leo's such a professional, such a prepared actor and takes it all so seriously," DeLine said. "But he got to know that Ridley's a wild man. He's got the ideas in his head; as an actor your job is to figure it out. He's a force of nature."