Those Eyes...That Face...

At first sight, with the blond hair and boyish looks, it was easy to dismiss actor

Leonardo DiCaprio as a chocolate-faced mush-type actor. Boy, were we wrong...

He's HOT. But there's more to actor and Hollywood sensation Leonardo DiCaprio than his classic good looks and a smile that shoots straight at your heart. It lies in his excellence as an actor and the ability to switch between playing the boy and the man with equal comfort.

He's brilliant as the smooth-talking charmer, in Steven Spielberg's 'Catch Me If You Can'. Only Leo could've played that misguided youth - lonely and troubled - to perfection. Watch him in 'The Aviator' as the larger-than-life Howard Hughes and you can feel the genius with his desire for bigger, faster things and his obsessive personality bordering on lunacy. A stunning performance got him the Best Actor in a Drama award at this year's Golden Globe Awards.

He is a hell of a serious actor. To play Howard Hughes' character with obsessive-compulsive disorder, Leo explored his own mild disorders. To prepare for Arnie Grape in 'What's Eating Gilbert Grape?' (a role that brought him an Oscar nomaination), a very young Leo studied autistic children while visiting homes for the autistic. If that isn't dedication, we don't know what is!

Being the teen heartthrob that he is, Leo could've easily done a string of commercially popular movies and added to his hit list, but the guy prefers to select his films carefully. Has turned down roles like Robin in 'Batman Forever' and preferred taking up challenging dark roles in 'Basketball Diaries', 'Total Eclipse', 'Gangs Of New York' and of course that of Howard Hughes in 'The Aviator'.