Leonardo DiCaprio Wore a Fake Butt for ‘Shocking’ Spanking Scene

There are a number of shocking twists and turns in Killers of the Flower Moon, Martin Scorsese's latest crime epic. Inspired by the real-life murders documented in David Grann's 2017 nonfiction book Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI, the film stars Leonardo DiCaprio as Ernest Burkhart, who marries Mollie Kyle (Lily Gladstone), a Native American woman of means, at the behest of his uncle William Hale (Robert De Niro) as part of a wider plot to kill and rob wealthy members of the Osage Nation.

Scorsese's depiction of the heinous crimes against the Osage people, while hard to watch at times, has been praised for the way it humanizes a demographic so often exploited in historical cinema. But it's not just the murders that make for uncomfortable viewing.

One of the most surprising moments in the movie comes around halfway through its three-and-a-half-hour running time, when Ernest, who has bungled his role in the criminal conspiracy, is punished by his uncle. De Niro's William Hale leads his nephew into a back room, instructs him to bend over, and proceeds to brutally spank him with a paddle.

It is a moment that was not depicted in the source material, and according to cinematographer Rodrigo Prieto, was not even originally planned to be in the movie. "I don’t think that was in the first script," he told Insider. "That was something that was added, and it’s shocking in the film."

He added that DiCaprio—who wore padding in this scene to protect his tush—threw himself into filming it with gusto.

"I do remember doing them quite a few times and thinking, 'Oh, that must hurt,'" said Prieto. "There was some padding on his butt. But you could tell De Niro was really hitting him… Leo is game for so much. He'll do anything."

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