Leonardo Dicaprio is having a good year. He finally, finally won an Academy Award, and now he’s getting written up as one of Time Magazine’s 100 Most Influential People for his work on the environment. The public figure who is penning his praises? None other than U.S. Secretary of State, John Kerry.
Of course, Kerry’s profile on Dicaprio, “Earth’s leading man,” has to open with a joke about The Revenant: “When I first read how Leonardo DiCaprio slept in an animal carcass and gnawed on raw bison to transform himself into Hugh Glass, I may have felt a little queasy—but I can’t say I was surprised.”
This is all a testament to Dicaprio’s commitment to his projects of course, and such a commitment extends to the actor’s environmental causes. Kerry goes on to mention the actor’s foundation, in operation since 1998, that gives money to conservation projects in more than 44 countries. His meeting with Pope Francis (where the actor busts out some Italian!) was also brought up.
But this is what Kerry remembers Dicaprio the most for:
And when I invited him to join the State Department’s first global Our Ocean conference, aimed at building collaboration to protect one of our most critical resources, Leo didn’t just show up—he put up millions of dollars for ocean protection as part of the effort.
Saving our polluted and depleted oceans? Nothing to argue with there.
(via Time)
