Leonardo Dicaprio has revealed he slept in animal carcasses and ate raw bison on the set of new movie The Revenant. In the Western, directed by Alejandro G. Iñárritu, DiCaprio plays frontiersman Hugh Glass, who sets out on a revenge mission against his hunting team after they leave him for dead and murder his young son, following a bear mauling.

The RevenantLeonardo DiCaprio in The Revenant.

Speaking to Yahoo Movies, DiCaprio said, "I can name 30 or 40 sequences that were some of the most difficult things I’ve ever had to do. Whether it’s going in and out of frozen rivers, or sleeping in animal carcasses, or what I ate on set. (I was) enduring freezing cold and possible hypothermia constantly.”

”I certainly don’t eat raw bison liver on a regular basis,” DiCaprio continued. “When you see the movie, you’ll see my reaction to it, because (director Alejandro González Iñárritu) kept it in. It says it all. It was an instinctive reaction.”

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The 40-year old actor added that the film was going to be, “one of the most unique film-going experiences that audiences have seen in modern times.” “It’s epic poetry, an existential journey through nature, and this man finding a will to live against all odds,” he added. “Yet he changes, nature changes him and I think those elements changed him while we were doing the movie.”

But aside from his own upcoming movie DiCaprio, like everyone else, is excited for the new Star Wars film, The Force Awakens. “I’m going to be in line for Star Wars as well. What’s great about this time of year is, as you know, they save the best for last in most cases,” he said,

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The Force Awakens is released just weeks before The Revenant and DiCaprio knows that any film is going to have a tough time competing with Star Wars at the box office. “I would never think that we’d be able to compete with Star Wars — that’s something that’s embedded in our cultural DNA.”

“But I think when people begin to hear about (The Revenant), they’ll want to go see it," he added. "And that’s all we can hope for.” The Revenant is released on January 8th in the U.S. and January 15th in the UK. 

Watch the trailer for The Revenant here: