Rodrigo Prieto, director of photography for the films “Barbie” and “Killers of the Flower Moon”, spoke about the wild spanking scene with Leonardo DiCaprio and Robert De Niro.
The scene in question
About halfway through Killers of the Flower Moon, William King Hale (De Niro) is upset with his nephew Ernest Burkhart (DiCaprio). Hale tries to infiltrate the Osage family of Ernest’s wife, Molly (Lily Gladstone). One aspect of the plan fails and Hale decides to punish his nephew.
The punishment consisted of Ernest bending over and spanking him with a wooden paddle. “I remember doing it a few times and thinking, ‘Oh, this must hurt,'” Prieto told Insider. “There was a pad on his butt. But you could tell De Niro was really beating him.”
Speaking about DiCaprio’s willingness to take part, Prieto said that he is “ready for a lot” and that “he will do anything.”
Killers of the Flower Moon is Martin Scorsese’s twenty-sixth feature film. This also marks his tenth collaboration with Robert De Niro and sixth with Leonardo DiCaprio. The film depicts the conflict between the Osage people and the Osage murders. It is based on the novel of the same name by David Grann. Scorsese will again adapt one of Grann’s novels for his next feature film, The Wager (based on the 2023 novel The Wager: A Story of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder).
Killers of the Flower Moon is in theaters now.