A former assistant of Hollywood heartthrob Leonardo DiCaprio has opened up about what it's like to work with the star.
Kasi Brown said the 'Titanic' star is a down-to-earth person who, yearned for anonymity and the ability to blend in with the crowd.
"Halloween is my favorite holiday,'" Brown recalled DiCaprio telling her. The holiday was Brown's favorite, too, so she asked why.
"His face got serious and he said he liked the anonymity," Brown told The Huffington Post over an email.
"He said it was nice to be able to walk amongst people and interact with them without recognition. Just be like everybody else without any expectation."
She said it was a lot of fun working with the actor and claimed they bonded well over
"Leo and I always had fun on set," said Brown.
She claimed that they particularly bonded over "how they "love[d] to observe people and goof around playing characters, doing accents, whatever".
One recurring joke between the two involved Brown pretending that DiCaprio were the archetypal celebrity.
"Sometimes, I would pretend that he was the stereotype of an entitled celebrity and when he would ask me to do something, I would bow and in a beaten-down voice say, 'Yes, sir, anything you like sir, anything else, sir?' and he would laugh and tell me to knock it off," Brown said.
When asked about how she got the job, Brown said she got it by way of a particularly lucky connection.
She said it all began when she visited her best friend in Canada who was, at the time, assisting DiCaprio as he started filming 'The Aviator' in Montreal.
During the day, Brown would visit the set. At night, Brown, her friend and DiCaprio "would go out on the town."
So when the set relocated to Los Angeles and her friend moved on to assist Kate Hudson, Brown was already in a prime position to be the replacement.
"She asked me if I was interested in taking over the position," Kasi Brown recalled over email. "I thought, why not? It would give me the opportunity, as a filmmaker, to watch Martin Scorsese and Leonardo DiCaprio work. I’d be an idiot to turn down a learning opportunity like that!"
It was while on set that Brown learned many things about DiCaprio. She learned that he was "very smart, knew quite a bit about politics, pop culture, history, you name it."
He had a "wicked sense of humor" and would spend his rare down-time chatting with everybody on the set, including crew and extras.
At the end of filming, DiCaprio gave the entire crew embroidered flight bags with a note written in the style of Howard Hughes, the eccentric business tycoon DiCaprio played in the movie.
"He's extremely down to earth, and he likes to share stories and life experiences with people," said Brown.
Additionally, working with the actor gave her an insight on acting and inspired her follow her dream of film-making.
"On the way to set one day, I saw that he kept stepping on all the cracks and spots on the floor in our path," Brown recalled.
"He was playing Howard Hughes, who has OCD, and I realized that he was getting into character."
Brown even got to act alongside DiCaprio, with Martin Scorsese directing her.
When the actress that played DiCaprio's mother in the movie wasn't available to do a particular reshoot, Brown stepped in to play the offscreen role.
She had memorized the Southern drawl the former actress had used and was able to imitate the original performance.
"When they cut, Marty came up to me and said, 'You’re an actress!' and Leo stepped off set and said, 'Kasi!' in an impressed voice," Brown said.
"They both made me feel really good about my acting and the work that I was doing to learn everything I could on set while assisting Leo."
Even after the two parted ways after filming "The Aviator", Brown said DiCaprio still kept in touch and even encouraged her to pursue her dreams.
"He gave [me] encouragement all along the way," despite all the years that had passed.
Finally in 2015, Brown fulfilled her goal of making her own movie when she wrote and directed the comedy 'Gone Doggy Gone' with her partner Brandon Walter.
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