Blood Diamond's leading men get serious about diamonds in Sierra Leone    

Blood Diamond, the new action-drama by director Edward Zwick (The Last Samurai, Courage Under Fire), is the story of two African men in the midst of the conflict diamond crisis in 1990s Sierra Leone. Djimon Hounsou (Amistad, In America) stars as Solomon Vandy, a Mende fisherman whose family is torn apart when his village is raided by rebels. Leonardo DiCaprio plays Danny Archer, a white Southern African ex-mercenary who has been hardened by the years of violent conflict that has plagued his continent. Each man is after a rare diamond that will unlock the key to his future—for Danny, buying his freedom from the diamond trade, and for Solomon, getting his son back.

By all accounts, the shoot, which took place on location in Africa, was a grueling one. “If you weren’t in shape before, when you get there, you’ll be in shape. That’s the makeup of Africa,” says Hounsou. “Djimon got banged up, I hurt my knee. There are some of the sequences of the movie that Ed set up—a full week of squibs and diving behind cars,” says DiCaprio. Hounsou claims DiCaprio is being modest. “Actually, he had a very very bad knee, so he had to go to the hospital. But he came back like a champion, banged up and patched up. And he crawled on it and did what we had to do to finish this film,” he says.

DiCaprio, who played a former soldier, also underwent military training with the South African army in preparation for his role. “We did a lot of faux military activities of hunting in the bush and tracking in the bush. That was the really tough stuff—getting that military background—because they are some of the best trained guys in the entire world,” he says.

In addition to the military training, DiCaprio also had to learn the unusual South African accent. He worked with an accent coach, but more than that “it was about going there,” he explains. “Spending a lot of time with the locals, drinking beers with them, hearing their stories…just listening to them talk.”

Hounsou and DiCaprio had never worked together before, but according to Hounsou, both actors felt the weight of working with the other. “I had such a great respect and affinity for his work,” he says. “I was more intimidated by him, to be honest. And I think he had a great respect for me as well. So the first scene, we were working and we kind of stood by and just watched each other.”

Over the weeks of doing the physical stunts in the mud and the sun, they developed a friendship. “Djimon and I became very close. I mean, you know, it’s going to be a lasting friendship for me,” says DiCaprio. “[We] would sit there and talk about the different kinds of hot chocolates you can get in Paris, and croissants, and chocolates, and dream like two weird women on...pastries.”

Continuing the modesty theme, it is Hounsou who reveals that DiCaprio showed his friendship in a very real way. “Somebody threatened to shoot me at a place in South Africa,” says Hounsou, who only heard about the incident a week later. DiCaprio stood up for him. “He said, you know, “You have to go through me. Because I know this guy and I’m sure he didn’t do anything wrong to you,” recounts Hounsou. “And the guy showed him his gun—that’s where they got that line from. Because the guy said to him, you know, ‘We don’t do things like you do in Hollywood—bling, bling. Here it’s bling, pow.’”

Both DiCaprio and Hounsou were immediately drawn to the script—both the story itself and the potential it held for change. “When I came across this story, this was the most powerful human story that ever came out of Africa,” says Hounsou. “It wasn’t so much about blood diamonds. It enveloped so many other attributes, so many other issues about Africa. Issues about child soldiers, issues of refugees, the displacement of millions of people throughout the continent affecting the neighboring countries.”

“It has to be a good movie and it has to convey a message without the audience feeling they are being preached to. And I felt this script accomplished that,” says DiCaprio. “To me, it was very representative of a huge sort of issue in the world today of corporate responsibility and what these corporations do. And certainly Africa has been a prime target for it.”

Do they think you shouldn’t buy diamonds? Not necessarily. “Does it mean that? I don’t know. Probably not…Ultimately, diamonds are a source of economic stability in Africa,” says DiCaprio. So what can you do? “Ask for a certificate and ask for some authentication that this isn’t a conflict diamond…That’s one of the biggest ways this whole process can be stopped.”

“To do nothing is intolerable, and certainly to do something is just not enough,” says Hounsou. “As citizens of this world, we must do everything we can to bring awareness to the world, so that everybody knows what the issues are about trading diamonds...We have a responsibility as citizens of this world to really do what is necessary to change the outcome.”

Blood Diamond opens Friday, December 8, 2006.

Check out ReelzChannel.com's Blood Diamond page for clips from the film and more!