Leonardo DiCaprio improvised Don’t Look Up’s 'devastating' final lines

End of the world satire Don't Look Up was meant to be a comedy, but we were all reaching for the tissues while watching Leonardo DiCaprio's heartbreaking final scene.

Well, it turns out we have Leo himself to thank for some of that dinner scene's emotional sucker punch.

You can watch the trailer for the movie below:

For anyone not familiar with Don't Look Up, it tells the story of 'two low-level astronomers who must go on a giant media tour to warn mankind of an approaching comet that will destroy planet Earth'.

Jennifer Lawrence stars alongside DiCaprio with a host of other stars including Rob Morgan, Jonah Hill, Mark Rylance, Tyler Perry, Ron Perlman, Timothée Chalamet, Ariana Grande, Scott Mescudi, Cate Blanchett, and Meryl Streep.

While the film definitely had plenty of laugh out loud moments, director Adam McKay previously said its tone falls somewhere between The Big Short and The Other Guys.

"It’s not the most high-concept bizarre idea – the idea of a disaster movie in which people don’t necessarily believe that the disaster is coming. It goes back to the trope of the mayor from Jaws," he told The New York Times.

He went on to add: "I call it a dark comedy."

Netflix

The film still has some pretty serious moments, including DiCaprio's last line in the film.

As it becomes apparent that there's nothing more the astronomers can do to save the world from being completely wiped out, DiCaprio says: "We really did have everything, didn’t we?"

It's a heartbreaking moment that makes us understand the beauty of the world we're in.

And, turns out, it was made up on the spot by the Oscar-winning actor, with McKay telling Insider: "Believe it or not, that line at the end of the movie where he says, ‘We really did have [everything, didn't we?]’ that wasn't in the script. He came with that the day we were filming.”

Netflix

McKay continued: “In the edit, it was Leo who pushed us to put the line in. The line was so devastating. We were trying to get the balance of that ending just right.

"You don't want to traumatise the audience but you want it to hit them. So we didn't have that line in, and this is nearing final cut. We don't have much time left. And Leo was there and said, ‘Don't you have to try that line? It really felt powerful when we did it.’

“I was afraid to use it and we put it just before a test screening and it just landed. So I thanked Leo for pushing me on that. That's really the line of the movie.”

And we have to agree, the line landed perfectly - much like the comet itself.

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