Article: Holding court with 'Basketball Diaries' star Leonardo DiCaprio.(Originated from Knight-Ridder Newspapers)

NEW YORK _ At age 20, Leonardo DiCaprio has earned the kind of respect and awards that most actors labor a lifetime to achieve.

Older performers itch to work with him. Directors ache to cast him, and his asking price per movie has reportedly rocketed into the $1-million range.

For ``The Basketball Diaries,'' which opens this weekend, DiCaprio accepted much less, because the production had a bare-bones budget but he badly wanted the lead role of Jim Carroll, a teen-age heroin addict who grew up to be a poet and musician.

It's a true story, based on a 1978 autobiography with the same title, and it co-stars rapper-turned-actor Marky Mark Wahlberg as a ...

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