I don't think set out to be a master criminal. Let’s peel back the curtain on the man behind the man, the real “Wolf” of Wall Street, Jordan Ross Belfort. Yes, it is funny, but I've always said that it's not funny. Whether our intentions were to cause a sensation, I don't know about that… It's profane and obscene also, so I think why not just do it? Why not just show it and maybe provoke it to the point where you take the audience into that mindset and actually, at times, find it funny? This is the sharp edge of the picture, in a way. Yes, the film is a lightning rod, so to speak.

While many characters in the film had their names changed from their real-life counterparts or are merely amalgamations of several people, Jordan Belfort (played by Leonardo DiCaprio in the movie), the story’s central protagonist is true to life in far more than name. Wolf Screenwriter Terence Winter, MovieMaker Magazine I wanted the audience to be seduced by these guys. The biggest challenge was making Jordan not necessarily likable-I knew he would be compelling and funny-but a character that you actually wanted to spend three hours with. Martin Scorsese’s 2013 bro opus The Wolf of Wall Street (watch the trailer HERE) is one of the best movies ever made, a darkly humorous (watch Jordan’s father, Max, lose his mind over an American Express bill in Wolf HERE) and entertaining tour de force that leaves you breathless for every second of its nearly three hour running time.

“No matter what happened to you in your past, you are not your past, you are the resources and the capabilities you gain from it… That is the basis for all change.”

Belfort the wolf of wall street