Leonardo DiCaprio Describes Exactly What It Was Like Eating Raw Bison Liver in 'The Revenant'
There are some unspeakable things frontiersman Hugh Glass did to survive in the real-life tale that inspired The Revenant, but we won’t spoil for them for you here. And then there are the things Method man Leonardo DiCaprio did to portray Glass while shooting the film, some of which has already become filmmaking legend. Chief among them: DiCaprio’s devouring of a raw bison liver in one scene, which lead to near-immediate vomiting for the vegetarian actor.
“It’s kind of like a balloon, it’s got a membrane and then you bite into it and then something horrific bursts into your mouth,” DiCaprio told Yahoo Movies (watch above) in describing the experience. “I wanted to do it because the things that they were giving me just didn’t look real. Pain is temporary, film is forever. You’re there once, you gotta give this stuff a shot.”
Related: Leonardo DiCaprio on Fighting a Bear in ‘The Revenant’ and Film vs. TV
DiCaprio was encouraged by the actor he was working opposite at the time, Arthur RedCloud, who plays a Native American that Glass encounters at the height of his desperation. RedCloud’s character, Hikuc, is able to fend a small pack of wolves off of a bison they attacked, and is in the middle of a feast when the starving Glass approaches.
“[He] had been eating it all day long, he had literally been chewing on bison liver all day long,” he said. “So I felt a little inadequate.”
And in case you’re wondering or couldn’t tell from DiCaprio’s description… no, raw bison liver does NOT taste like chicken.
The Revenant opens in limited release Christmas Day and wide on Jan. 8.
