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The man whose tales of stock market malfeasance fueled the Oscar-nominated The Wolf of Wall Street says the debauchery shown in the film is authentic.
“The drug use and the stuff with the hookers and the sales assistants and the sex in the office … that stuff is really, really accurate,” Jordan Belfort tells The Hollywood Reporter. “In some respects, my life was even worse than that. Though I’d say I did more quaaludes than cocaine.”
Belfort, who spent 22 months in prison for fraud and money laundering, says both Brad Pitt and Leonardo Dicaprio were interested in adapting his memoir, The Wolf of Wall Street. Belfort says he is very pleased with DiCaprio’s Oscar-nominated turn playing him.
“I was blown away. The way he was able to capture my energy, especially during the sales scenes and the speeches,” Belfort says. “He didn’t try to duplicate my voice as much as my mannerisms, my tonalities and my gestures.”
He hopes his movie will serve as “a cautionary tale,” and that people will recognize there were “some really great things” about him — such as his skills with sales and motivating people — but learn you should “delay your gratification a bit,” and “maintain your ethics and integrity.
PHOTOS: Scorsese, DiCaprio Spill Candid Stories About ‘The Wolf Of Wall Street’
“Without that, success isn’t really success,” he says.
For more from Belfort, read the full story here. He was photographed by Christopher Patey in his Hermosa Beach, Calif., home. You may also want to see what DiCaprio, director Martin Scorsese and screenwriter Terence Winter had to say back in November about the wild making of the film.
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