In 2013, Jonah Hill lived out his wildest dreams after being cast in Martin Scorsese’s wild biopic, The Wolf of Wall Street, opposite Leonardo Dicaprio. While DiCaprio took on the titular role of Jordan Belfort, Hill portrayed his sidekick Donnie. Together, the pair established Stratton Oakmont, a brokerage house that defrauded thousands of investors.
In an interview with Yahoo Movies around the time of the film’s premiere, Hill also revealed that he hated his character in the movie, Donnie. “They say you’re not supposed to judge the character at all, and I tried my hardest, but I couldn’t really find that much I really liked about Donnie,” he said. “I just didn’t like the way that Donnie treated people, that was the thing I had the hardest time with.”
“There’s a scene with a goldfish where I throw a lit cigarette at this kid and make him cry and fire him and eat his goldfish and it’s really degrading,” Hill continued. “On the way home, I would just be like, ‘Oh gosh, what did I do today?’ I would feel bad.”
While shooting the Scorsese blockbuster, Hill and DiCaprio spoke regularly with the Wolf of Wall Street himself, Jordan Belfort. Leonardo and I would have dinner with him all the time and he was an open book to us,” Hill explained in a video feature issued by Focus On Film.
“Two nights before shooting, I asked Jordan, I said, ‘Do you feel bad about what you did to these people?’. He just said he kind of didn’t think about it at that time, and if he could go back, if he could do the same thing without hurting those people, he obviously would have.”
Hill added that Belfort also told him that his character, Donnie, “liked the fact he was hurting people.”
Watch the official trailer for The Wolf of Wall Street below.