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Come the 28th February 2016, the chances are Leonardo DiCaprio will finally have won an Oscar. It’s all looking very promising for the actor who has already won at the Screen Actors Guild AWards, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association Awards and the Golden Globes for his role in The Revenant; surely he’s bound to win?
If he doesn’t win, fret not, as fans in Siberia have gone beyond the call of duty to make sure the 41-year-old gets an Oscar. Female fans from the Yakutia region are reportedly melting down their valuables to create a statuette for DiCaprio as part of an ‘Oscar for Leo’ campaign.
Unlike the real trophy, the Siberian one will be made of both Gold and Silver (therefore not having the same gold colour), it will face upwards rather than downwards and will hold a golden traditional three-legged Yakut goblet.
Leonardo DiCaprio's career in pictures
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Tatyana Yegorova, the woman behind the campaign, told Russian news agency TASS (via Metro): “Yakutia praises high-quality cinema and considers DiCaprio to be an actor who can inspire and delight his audiences."
According to the campaign leader, over 1000 people have already donated to the cause. She also argued that this award is just as valid as a real Oscar: “Since the movie is a mass art form, aimed at the broad masses, we believe that viewers have a right to give this prize.”
In a separate interview with Russian news channel RIA Novosti (via Vanity Fair), a teacher from the Arctic State Institute of Culture and Arts, Tatiana Egorova, estimated that the award is worth 100,000 rubles (around £900).
The statue is expected to be around 12 inches tall, but could be much bigger, it all depends on the number of donations they receive. Egorova also explained how some women were only donating half a set of jewellery while keeping the other half in an attempt to feel closer to the actor.
She said: “Like one half will be with Leonardo DiCaprio and one half with them. To be somehow connected with the actor.”
Come Oscar night, Dipcario will be competing with Eddie Redmayne for The Danish Girl, Michael Fassbender for Steve Jobs, Bryan Cranston for Trumbo and Matt Damon for The Martian. Read all the latest Oscar coverage here.
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