The split and several recent deaths of people close to him sent Linklater, a 6-foot-3-inch slender man with nervous energy and a remarkably thick thatch of brown hair, into a dark period that fueled his first play.

WSJ: Actor Hamish Linklater evolves into playwright

By using DiCaprio, and then aging him with prosthetic makeup, Eastwood lets us see how a slender, good-looking young man might thicken and coarsen with years and power.

NEWYORKER: The Man in Charge

And certainly not my grandfather himself, the smiling watchman of my earliest memories, the quiet, black-eyed, slender man who held my hand as we crossed the avenues, who sat on a park bench reading his Russian newspaper while I chased pigeons and harassed sugar ants with broken twigs.

NPR: Excerpt: 'City of Thieves'