Leonardo DiCaprio Was Told His Name Was 'Too Ethnic' at Age '12 or 13'

Leonardo DiCaprio was once told he wouldn’t make it in Hollywood if he didn’t change his name.

DiCaprio, 50, appeared on the Wednesday, September 24, episode of Travis and Jason Kelce’s “New Heights” podcast, where he opened up about a “holy s***” moment in his acting career: being told by his first agent that his name was “too ethnic.”

“I go, ‘What do you mean, it’s Leonardo DiCaprio?’ They go, ‘No, too ethnic. They’re never going to hire you,’” he recalled.

DiCaprio, who was 12 or 13 years old at the time, said that the agent then gave him a new name to use.

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“‘Your new name is Lenny Williams,’” he remembered the agent saying. “I said, ‘What is Lenny?’ … ‘We took your middle name [Wilhelm] and we made it your