The Haunting Beauty of 'The Revenant': New Photos of Leonardo DiCaprio's Western

In ‘The Revenant,’ Leonardo DiCaprio plays 1800s frontiersman Hugh Glass (pictured here with a Pawnee Indian woman played by Grace Dove). The film, directed by Oscar winner Alejandro González Iñárritu, is based on Michael Punke’s 2003 novel of the same name. According to production designer Jack Fisk, a character that does not appear in the book was added to the film: Glass’s son.

Part of a dream sequence, this scene depicts Glass (DiCaprio) observing a pile of roughly 10,000 buffalo skulls. Iñárritu was more concerned with Glass’s inner thoughts and added scenes that aren’t in the original book. “He didn’t worry about religiously doing the story,” says Fisk of the director.

This photo depicts Glass being hunted down by other outdoorsmen. Almost all lighting sources used for filming were natural, explains Fisk. “And this takes place before the kerosine lantern was invented.” Most filming took place between 5:30 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. “We’d be scrambling at the end of the day to film the last few hours of daylight.”

Filmed in excruciating subzero temperatures, Tom Hardy (as John Fitzgerald, pictured) and Leonardo DiCaprio — along with the rest of the cast and crew — endured extreme conditions during the prolonged shoot. ‘The Revenant’ was filmed mostly in the outdoors of Canada and finished in the snowy slopes of Argentina.

Fisk recalled a time when a nearby river froze right before the cast and crew’s eyes. “The set flooded with ice water as Alejandro was trying to get his scene,” he said. “It was the equivalent of shooting in a hurricane.”

DiCaprio, a vegetarian, was so in character he ate real meat in a scene depicting Glass surviving off a wild bison’s liver. “He had to eat the liver,” says Fisk. “I think he threw up afterward… he was so into it. It made me really appreciate the extent to which he’ll go to make things right.”