Leonardo DiCaprio is reclining against the couch of his Beverly Hills hotel suite, tossing tic tacs into his mouth and sipping herbal tea. In his navy blue Lacoste shirt and dark jeans, he is the personification of California cool. But the demeanour is deceptive. DiCaprio, best known for playing eccentric billionaires (like Howard Hughes in The Aviator), or a spunky poor kid who falls in love with a rich man's daughter on an ill-fated steamer (a small movie called Titanic), is now conveying a different identity - and one on a rather more urgent mission. DiCaprio has been throwing his weight behind a documentary called The 11th Hour, a film he narrated and produced. In the piece, which runs about 90 minutes, DiCaprio focuses on climate change, global warming and the impending impact this has on the world. The actor is quick to shoot down the notion that he came at the subject with the authority of an expert; he says he is anything but. Also, he continually refers to, and gives full credit to, Al Gore and his Oscar-winning documentary on the same subject, An Inconvenient Truth. 'A lot of this really came from not being an expert on this issue,' DiCaprio says. 'Unlike a lot of scientists, it's not like I've devoted my life to it. For me, it just became a question of becoming more aware of what's going on in the planet. In that sense, you don't need to be an expert to see the changing weather that is happening in the world, the profound droughts. Hurricane Katrina was a wake-up call for a lot of people. Things are changing on this planet that are indescribable, and it's about making connections and calling people who have made it their lives to concentrate on this issue.' For the project, DiCaprio teamed up with writer-director sisters Leila Conners Petersen and Nadia Conners, who are also working on a narrative feature on the subject for Ridley Scott. The sisters, along with DiCaprio, then set about amassing scientists, politicians, environmentalists and experts in sustainable design, to deliver insight. Hundreds of hours of interviews were interspersed with graphic, provocative and unnerving footage. Among those spotlighted are Kenyan ecologist Wangari Maathai, winner of the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize, who says: 'In my own part of the world, I keep telling people, 'Let us not cut trees irresponsibly. Let us not destroy especially the forested mountains. Because if you destroy the forests on these mountains, the rivers will stop flowing and the rains will become irregular and the crops will fail and you will die of hunger and starvation. Now the problem is, people don't make those linkages.' Other interviewees include former Soviet Union leader Mikhail Gorbachev, scientist Stephen Hawking, former head of the CIA, James Woolsey, and American architect William McDonough and Canadian designer Bruce Mau, who have come up with ready solutions to the problems that afflict the globe. The footage is, at its heart, optimistic, and DiCaprio hopes that it will motivate people to start making small changes that can result in a greater positive impact. '[The interviewees] talk about how we got so disconnected from nature, and how we went from being hunters and gatherers to the exploding population and the Industrial Revolution and being powered by oil - and as a result what has happened,' he says. Still, despite all the preparation and research, DiCaprio says he didn't really see the thread of the narrative forming until he sat through hundreds of hours of footage. 'And then I saw through the collective consciousness that what was remaining was mankind's connection to the planet,' he says. Although The 11th Hour is his first major documentary on the subject, DiCaprio - who serves on the boards of the National Resources Defense Council and Global Green USA - has harboured an interest in the environment since he was a child. 'It was really by watching documentaries as a young kid and being emotionally affected by films I saw about what was happening in the rainforest and the mass extinction of species in the world. I remember thinking, 'One day, I'd really like to be part of the solution'.' For him, it wasn't just the making of the movie or the striving to get people in to the cinemas to see it, but the wider outreach and awareness that has happened as a result of it. The documentary has been shown in many schools around the country. 'The truth of this is so important,' he says. 'If it hadn't been for An Inconvenient Truth, global warming wouldn't be on the cover of Newsweek and it wouldn't be the issue that it is in the world consciousness. Hopefully, some of the ideas that people talk about in this film will percolate like that.' While having 50 different people lending their thoughts to a single film may sound like it could be jarring and fragmented, the directors have done a good job of sewing all the bits together in a seamless narrative. 'The streams of consciousness through all these brains made me feel like it was one voice,' says Conners Petersen. 'It was a unified position we were taking.' Her sister says her main objective was to ensure that the film was emotional enough. 'We want for people to be compelled to tell other people, 'You should go check this movie out'. We tried to capture a human story, highlighting tragedy, shock, inspiration, hope and love. These are all very human feelings.' DiCaprio eschews the notion that environmental awareness is a divisive political issue. 'I'm always trying to say that if you're a part of the so-called Hollywood liberal agenda, feeling you're holier-than-thou because you're leading a green lifestyle, it's a mixed message and a destructive one,' he says. 'For me, it's not about solar panels or having a hybrid car. It's about being aware of the global forces that will shape our future, about awareness and public education and living in a world where we can, hopefully, just wake up and fuel our cars with bio-diesel and have our homes powered by wind power. It's not about judging or imposing our beliefs on others. 'No change is ever going to happen unless Republicans and Democrats work together. What we are trying to do with this movie isn't difficult to grasp - you look at the image of the planet and you think, 'How can I make an impact there?' Hopefully, this movie will be transformational in a way.' The 11th Hour is screening now
