Shocking true story behind Killers Of The Flower Moon lovers still boggles Leonardo DiCaprio

LOS ANGELES – It can be hard to believe that Killers Of The Flower Moon, the acclaimed crime saga from Oscar-winning American director Martin Scorsese, is based on real events – and that is true even for Leonardo DiCaprio, the star of the movie.

The film is about the murders of Osage Native Americans in 1920s Oklahoma, when members of the tribe became some of the richest people in the world following the discovery of oil on their land.

It opened in Singapore cinemas in October and is now available to buy or rent on the Apple TV app.

DiCaprio, 49, plays a real figure from that time, Ernest Burkhart, a white man who courted and married a wealthy Osage woman, Mollie Kyle (Lily Gladstone).

He and his uncle, William King Hale (Robert De Niro), then conspired to murder members of Mollie’s family so Ernest would inherit their rights to the oil.

But the film suggests that Ernest did love Mollie, and DiCaprio says he and Scorsese re-angled the script, which is based on a 2017 non-fiction bestseller by David Grann, around this unlikely romance.

“We knew this entire movie was reliant on this love story working,” DiCaprio says at a Zoom press conference.

But the fact that Ernest built a life with Mollie and had three children with her while also plotting to kill her family beggars belief.

“This man simultaneously being responsible for eradicating her bloodline, it was almost impossible to believe that this was a true story, and that was what was so shocking about it,” says the American performer, who won a Best Actor Oscar for the survival drama The Revenant (2015).

He and Gladstone did extensive research to “delve into the truth about Ernest and Mollie”, adds DiCaprio.

“And that began with speaking with the Osage community, and a lot of them insisting that there was a real love there.”

Still, DiCaprio could not completely wrap his head around Ernest’s duplicity, and it took more work with Scorsese and Gladstone to make sense of it.

“In the original draft (of the script), I saw this man confessing to the woman he loved that he was a part of eradicating her entire family.

“And it gave me the strangest emotional feeling. I said, ‘How could this story even exist?’”

Scorsese – who won the Best Director Oscar for crime thriller The Departed (2006) – wanted the Osage characters to be played by real members of the tribe or other Native American performers.

Gladstone, who is a member of the Blackfeet and Nez Perce tribes and grew up on a Blackfeet reservation in Montana, won the role of Mollie.

And the chemistry between Mollie and Ernest felt real to her, she says.

“We spent so much time in the community hearing about what this dynamic would’ve been like, and it’s one I’ve seen a lot growing up: this sort of regal, self-possessed woman and the man who lives to crack that shell a little bit and make her laugh,” says the 37-year-old American actress, who was in the indie dramas Certain Women (2016) and First Cow (2019).

Gladstone credits DiCaprio with helping her pull off the role, which has won her rave reviews from critics.

What surprised her most about working with the star was “how incredibly generous he is – as a human being and as an actor”, she says.

“It’s intimidating walking into this group of creators and being the new kid on the block, but all of it was just so easy to get around because he is so patient, generous and committed to this film.