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Where’s Leo? Internet turns ‘unrecognizable’ DiCaprio photo into amusing meme

Leonardo DiCaprio photographed at the Chateau Marmont hotel, Los Angeles, in January 2020.
Fans say Leonardo DiCaprio is indeed recognizable in a photo from his next film.
(Jay L. Clendenin / Los Angeles Times)
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After decades of hit movies and multiple awards, Leonardo DiCaprio probably has one of the best-known faces in Hollywood.

Tell that to the New York Post.

On Monday, the publication tweeted out a story about the A-list actor with a photo of him from the set of his next film for director Martin Scorsese, calling DiCaprio “unrecognizable.”

The problem is, most people seem to agree he’s very recognizable in the photo.

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“Leonardo DiCaprio unrecognizable in first photos of new Scorsese film,” tweeted the Post, with a shot of the Oscar winner with costar Lily Gladstone in a scene from “Killers of the Flower Moon.” (The film costars Robert DeNiro and is adapted from David Grann’s true-crime book “Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI.”)

It’s unclear what inspired the Post’s take, considering the lack of physical transformation in the photo, but the internet was ready to pounce. By Tuesday morning, Twitter had registered about 18,000 tweets in the trend.

The popular Twitter political commentator known as “The Hoarse Whisperer” wrote, “Completely unrecognizable. I can’t tell if Leo is the woman on the left or the one who looks exactly like Leonardo DiCaprio.”

Basketball reporter Duncan Smith tweeted, “Not sure if I’m comfortable with Leonardo DiCaprio playing a Native woman.”

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Many were suddenly suffering from Leo blindness. “Where is leonardo dicaprio, i can’t find him,” quipped one user.

Some users employed Photoshop to make it all make sense.

Even “Guardians of the Galaxy” director James Gunn got in on the act: “He must be the person in the left if he’s unrecognizable because the person on the right looks exactly like Leonardo DiCaprio.”

Because Twitter loves getting meta, one user responded with a popular DiCaprio meme from his Oscar-nominated turn in Quentin Tarantino’s “Once Upon a Time ... in Hollywood.”

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Texas sports reporter David Collier took the absurd approach, tweeting the original headline with a picture in which readers genuinely would have a tough time recognizing DiCaprio ... because he wasn’t in it (it’s Collier’s new profile picture).

Author Rebecca Makkai had a fishy take, retweeting a freaky post from the Hill about that weird deep-sea footballfish (the one with the lantern-like light dangling above its head) and saying, “Leo DiCaprio barely recognizable here.”

Matt Damon, DiCaprio’s costar in another Scorsese film, “The Departed,” got dragged into it. Former Vulture writer Hunter Harris posted the one-sheet for Damon’s upcoming “Stillwater” with the caption, “leonardo dicaprio is unrecognizable in new film.”

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