- [Leonardo] I got a bird.
Yeah.
Show me how to use it.
Oh, you gotta turn it on.
- [Interviewer] You know what the girls just asked me?     
- What?
 - "Is he légende?"      
- Is he what?
- [Interviewer]  "Is he légende?"      
- What is "légende"?
- [Interviewer] Are you a legend?
- Oh, really?
Yeah, I suppose I am.
Oh, 'Basketball Diaries!' 
Let's talk about that.
- [Interviewer] OK. So,
tell me who's in the movie,
and a little bit of what it's about.
- Lorraine Bracco plays my mother.
Bruno Kirby plays my
perverted basketball coach.
Lorraine — oh, I said Lorraine —
Marky Mark plays my best friend.
James Madio, Patrick
McGaw, Michael Imperioli,
Juliette Lewis has a cameo as
a prostitute, heroin addict,
and I believe that's it.
And me.
And what it's about?
- [Interviewer] Yeah.
- It's about a guy, Jim Carroll.
If you've read the book,
you know what it's about,
but I'll explain it.
It's about a young guy who
is on a basketball team,
who's a writer and a poet,
and he starts to get involved with heroin
and it starts to control him.
And he gets kicked out of school,
starts to live on the streets,
and then he meets a young dog
and falls in love with the dog,
and they run away to Paris together,
and that's why I'm here.
This is the Paris scenes.
- [Interviewer] Stop
it, I can't use that!
- OK, sorry.
What I think of Paris?
I think it's like a —                                                                                 I think it's like New York, 
except that it's a lot older
and a lot more beautiful than New York,
but it sort of has the
same sort of feeling to it.
There's a lot of different
cultures here and whatnot,
and it's probably has the most culture
of any city in the world, I think.
And it's beautiful! Basically,
and I like the people
here. I think they're cool.
I'm not sure where we are exactly,
but that, right there, is the Eiffel Tower.
And it's sort of foggy.
See the mist up top?
And here are a bunch of golden statues,
and I don't think they're real gold,
but they'd get ripped off.
And that's the Goddess of Water,
and that's the Goddess of Cloth,
and that's the Goddess of her hair.
OK, this is the famous Louvre Museum,
the best, probably the best museum
in the whole entire world.
And here is home to the
Mona Lisa, Venus de Milo,
and millions of Egyptian
artifacts, and whatnot.
And I — you know what I
hear? This is confidential,
but the Mona Lisa here
isn't really the Mona Lisa.
Supposedly, some guys really stole it
and it's like a replica,
because they have it like this,
behind this little thin piece of glass,
and I could've just gone
in there and taken it home,
put it under my jacket.
Supposedly, it's in some
rich guy's living room.
But I'll believe it just for the sake that, you know, 
I have the same name as da Vinci.
(passersby singing)
(Leonardo claps)
See ya!
That is cheerful, isn't it?
I feel like Jim Carrey.
- [Interviewer] I was going to say
you remind me of Jim Carrey.
- And this is a gift from
Egypt, brought here in
1601 by the ambassador Howling Swuck,
and he gave this to the Parisians,
and it symbolizes fertility.
That is a very famous French palace,
and it's where a lot of famous people go,
and it's just a nice place
to hang out, you know,
if you want a cup of coffee,
a donut, a little crepe,
some fromage and tomate, and
framboise, all that stuff.
- [Interviewer] Are you ever worried about
making the transition over to adult roles
or are you satisfied with —
- People have asked me that,
but you know what my answer is?
I'll tell you what my answer is.
Would you like to know?
My answer is that I'll never
get to really be young again,
and this is my time to be young.
So, if there's roles right now that fit me
as a young person, I'm gonna do them,
and not sort of rush into
becoming the young adult —
I am a young adult, but
to be like the sex symbol
of this, you know, the young guy.
If I can do roles right
now that are young,
I'll never get a chance to do them again,
and I plan on being around for a while.
So, I'll get to do all
that stuff later in life.
- [Interviewer] Are you scared
of being the next heartthrob
or the "Hunk of the Month," or —
- No, I'm not scared
of that, I don't think.
I mean, I don't mind it.
Whatever, I mean, as long as I get —
I don't really care about my
public perception, you know?
I've learned a lot about that, you know?
From meeting people in the business
and finding out it's completely different
than you think it may be.
I mean, sometimes, it's completely true.
Sometimes you read stuff about people,
and you're like, "Wow,
that guy really is a jerk.
They were right."
But, a lot of times, it's just not true.
I've sort of learned not
to take it so seriously
and not to really give
in to that, you know?
Not to be depressed about it,
'cause I'm gonna get to
do what I wanna get to do,
and that's work. And that's
all that really matters for me.
- [Interviewer] Do you have
any sort of older mentors
that you look at, or
their careers that —
- There's plenty of people.
I like Gary Oldman a lot.
I think Gary Oldman's really good.
I like [Al] Pacino,
[Dustin] Hoffman.
I like — oh god, David Thewlis. (laughs)
He's gonna laugh at that.
- [Interviewer] Once you
did 'Quick and the Dead,'
that kind of took you out of the running?
- For what?
- [Interviewer] For
'Interview with the Vampire.'
- No, I didn't get
'Interview with the Vampire.'
I went up there to meet
them, and I didn't get it.
- [Interviewer] Is that
something that you wanted to do?
- Yeah.
- [Interviewer] OK.
- Basically.
I went up there, and — I went to
New Orleans, and I met them,
and I said, "Yeah, I'd like
to work on this movie."
'Cause it was with Brad
Pitt, and I like Brad Pitt.
I think he's a good actor.
- [Interviewer] Do you have
anything in the future,
or any chance in the future,
that you'd want to do that
or direct a film or —
- I wanna direct.
Someday, I wanna direct. (laughs)
No, I don't.
I think acting for now is
taking enough of my time.
And, if I meet some other people
and sort of want to get involved
in writing or co-producing or
something, that may come up.
I'm sort of open to that,
but, right now, acting is really
consuming a lot of my time
with the publicity like this
and with the acting itself.
I mean, I'm away so much out of the year,
and I could, I suppose.
But it's not really a big aim of mine.
I sort of want to travel
and do fun stuff, I guess,
have vacations.
- [Interviewer] Hang out in
Paris a little bit longer?
(laughs)
- That's fun.
- [Interviewer] Yeah.
- So I'm going to tell the
truth, I have to be honest,
I don't live anywhere around here,
but this is for the sake of MTV.
Goodbye. Thank you.
I'll just be walking down here,
and then I'll walk back later.
See ya.
Au revoir!
