Other than keeping himself busy with Rihanna, Leonardo DiCaprio is apparently preparing the groundwork for his next film titled “A Crowded Room.”
The 40-year-old actor will again be taking on the challenging role of Billy Milligan in the movie, based on a true story. Milligan is the first person ever to successfully use dissociative identity disorder, or more commonly known with its old name as multiple personality disorder, as defense in a criminal prosecution trial, reports the Examiner.
DiCaprio will not just be acting on the film, he will also produce it too through his production company Appian Way in collaboration with New Regency, notes the Huffington Post.
“A Crowded Room” will be the second official collaboration of DiCaprio’s Appian Way and New Regency. The two production outfits also teamed up for the movie “The Reverend” that is expected to hit theaters come this coming Holidays. The movie involves “Birdman” director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu and actor Tom Hardy.
A criminal defense
“A Crowded Room” is based on Daniel Keyes’ non-fiction book titled “The Minds of Billy Milligan.” In the book, the author tells the story of Milligan who went to trial in the 70s for the alleged crimes of robbery and three counts of rape.
Milligan was accused of committing the crimes lodged against him while studying at the Ohio State University.
In the course of the trial, Milligan plead insanity using the dissociative identity disorder which he was eventually diagnosed to have, since the suspect does not just have two personalities but actually had 24 of them.
His lawyers aver to the court that two of the 24 personalities of Milligan committed the crimes without the consent or knowledge of his real self.
A new name
The American Psychiatric Association has actually changed the name of multiple personality disorder to dissociative identity order, which it published during the fourth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM) of Mental Disorders back in 1994.
The change in name was deemed important to emphasize the victim’s changes of consciousness and identity rather than his or her personality.
Milligan was greatly suffering from severe dissociative identity disorder because of his 24 personalities that include Arthur, a polite Englishman; Tommy, a con artist; Allen, a manipulator; Ragen Vadascovinich, a Yuguslavian communist, and Adalana, a 19-year-old lesbian.
His lawyers alleged that it was Ragen who committed the robbery while Adalana committed the three rapes.
Because of Milligan’s unique disease and character, DiCaprio has expressed his desire to play the role of the sick man as early as 1997. The Hollywood actor is no longer a surprise to challenging roles.
Also during the trial, it was revealed that Milligan’s first three personalities, Christine, Shawn, and a boy with no name, manifested its onset to Milligan when he was only five years old.