At this point, the Oscars don’t feel like the Oscars to me unless Leonardo DiCaprio is there in the front row. So, I’m pleased to say that he was in attendance on Sunday and was seemingly in the mood to have some fun.
Sitting between his girlfriend, Vittoria Ceretti, and his One Battle After Another costar, Teyana Taylor, Leo was the subject of several jokes throughout the night. But, for once, they weren’t about his dating life.
Leo is a legend of cinema, no doubt. But host Conan O’Brien decided to shine a light on some of the actor’s lesser-appreciated contributions to pop culture: his status as a powerhouse meme generator.
First up, we’ve got the wine-drinking laughing meme from Django Unchained.
Then we have the Jay Gatsby champagne toast firework moment from The Great Gatsby (one of my personal faves).
Followed by the all-timer that is Rick Dalton pointing at himself on TV while drinking a beer and smoking a cigarette in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.
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Suffice to say, if they gave out Oscars for memes, Leo would probably have a few to his name by now. So, Conan put his abilities to the test and asked him to create a new meme in real time, live from the Oscars audience. And this is what we got:
Deadline / ABC / The Academy / Via Twitter: @DEADLINE
I knew he wouldn’t let us down.
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If you’ve watched the clip, you’ll see that there was a slightly awkward delay while Leo and those around him figured out what was going on, prompting Conan to joke, “They’ll pull that up in editing.”
ABC / The Academy
Well, as it turns out, the meme was pretty accurate, as Leo genuinely didn’t agree to be a part of the bit.
On Monday, Variety published an interview with various Oscar executives, which revealed that Leo wasn’t warned about the meme moment beforehand and was as surprised as the rest of us. Fortunately, he figured out what he needed to do pretty quickly — but we can forgive him for the initial confusion.
“I’m sure anybody over the age of 30 was confused,” an Oscars insider told the outlet about the viral moment.
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IMO, that makes that whole thing even funnier. Give this man his meme Oscar. Stat.
You can find the rest of our 2026 Oscars coverage here.
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