"It is a great honor for me to be here (...) to pay tribute to a man who has been a role model for an entire generation of actors, our idol: Robert De Niro," said Leonardo DiCaprio as he presented the award.

"Robert De Niro's work isn't just about the roles he's played," he said, "it's about how he made actors see our profession not just as a performance, but as a transformation."

"I grew up in Los Angeles and, like all young actors, of course, we followed him, watched him from all angles, tried to understand how he managed to immerse himself completely in his roles," DiCaprio said. "He was a role model, not just another great actor, he was The Actor. I was one of those young actors who had the incredible luck to work with him, right at the beginning, in 'The Age of Innocence'. The auditions were tough, the competition was fierce, and none of us knew who would get the part. And when you're 15, you're trying to stand out," he recalled.

50-year-old Leonardo DiCaprio and 81-year-old Robert De Niro recently reunited on screen in Martin Scorsese's film "Killers of the Flower Moon," for which they walked the red carpet in Cannes in 2023. The two stars previously starred together in 1993's "The Age of Innocence" by Michael Crichton-Jones and in 1996's "Marvin's Room" by Jerry Zaks. | BGNES, AFP