Leonardo Dicaprio is attached to several exciting projects right now. He’s starring in Paul Thomas Anderson’s One Battle After Another with Teyana Taylor and might be working with director Damien Chazelle to play Evel Knievel. The latest big name DiCaprio is teaming up with? None other than Rolex, which announced the actor as its latest testimonee Tuesday morning.
The immediate dividend of this partnership is that DiCaprio should have access to Rolex’s full catalog. This will make for some great watch spotting from a guy we already know is a fan of the Daytona. However, Rolex’s ambassadorships typically go beyond strapping the newest timepieces to their famous partners’ wrists.
The Crown is uniquely supportive of initiatives across a wide variety of disciplines, from conservation to sport to music and cinema. The relationships are long-term partnerships that sees the brand investing in each testimonee’s projects, careers, and passions, such as underwater explorer and conservationist Sylvia Earle’s Mission Blue and company’s own Rolex Explorers Club grants. Think of partners like director James Cameron, who brought a Rolex prototype—that eventually entered the brand’s main catalog—on his expeditions to the Mariana Trench. In that way, DiCaprio is right up Rolex’s alley. In addition to being an Oscar-winning actor with an impressive roster of incredible films under his belt, he’s also a prominent environmentalist who established his own nonprofit, The Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation, in 1998.
The new ambassadorship was announced quietly in a new Rolex commercial (after WatchPro reported on rumors of a team-up two weeks ago). The only signal that DiCaprio joined the family is the actor, as Jay Gatsby, looking into the camera halfway through the new “Reach for the Crown” advert. However, the actor does now have his own page on the Crown’s website where he is described as a “Hollywood icon and climate champion.” And it doesn’t feel like coincidence that DiCaprio shows up in the new commercial right after director Martin Scorsese, another Rolex ambassador with whom DiCaprio worked with on The Aviator, The Departed, The Wolf of Wall Street, and Killers of the Flower Moon. Scorsese’s Film Foundation, a nonprofit dedicated to the preservation and restoration of classic films, is supported by Rolex. No doubt the relationship between Rolex and the acclaimed director had some influence upon bringing DiCaprio into the fold, though of course, the latter’s accomplishments clearly stand on their own.
Long before his official turn as a testimonee, DiCaprio was a Rolex guy. There are images of the then-20-something actor wearing a steel Zenith-powered Daytona ref. 16520 back in the ‘90s, and we even spotted him sporting a Daytona ref. 116509 “Racing” in December while seated courtside at a Lakers game. Heck, he even auctioned a white gold Daytona during his foundation’s annual gala back in 2016. (The engraving on the back? “Best, Leo.”)
The partnership does bring up an interesting question, however: Watch heads will note that DiCaprio invested in eco-friendly watch brand ID Genève back in 2023. Presumably, his participation in that seed round will constitute his sole investment now that he’s a Rolex testimonee. Still, said investment speaks to his broader interest in bringing together watches and environmentalism—something that surely didn’t go unnoticed by the Crown, which just released its first public sustainability report. And now that DiCaprio’s firmly ensconced at the top of the horological heap, we’re fully expecting turbo-charged, Rolex-themed watch spotting at each and every red carpet going forward.