Given Leonardo DiCaprio’s award-nominated take as the coke-snorting, Quaalude-popping Jordan Belfort in The Wolf of Wall Street, it’s hard to believe that the actor hasn’t indulged in debauchery of his own once or twice. But the actor told the Los Angeles Times that he’s “never done” drugs.

“That’s because I saw this stuff literally every day when I was 3 or 4 years old,” DiCaprio said. “So Hollywood was a walk in the park for me…. I’d go to parties and it was there and, yeah, there’s that temptation. Hollywood is a very volatile place where artists come in and they essentially say they want to belong. It’s incredibly vulnerable to be an actor and also get criticism at a young age when you’re formulating who you are. We’ve seen a lot of people fall victim to that, and it’s very unfortunate.”

DiCaprio built up a reputation as a party boy in the late 1990s when, fresh off Titanic fame, he and his actor entourage — dubbed “The Pussy Posse” — were caught on camera wreaking havoc in New York City. New York Magazine detailed the antics extensively in a 1998 feature called “Leo, Prince of the City.” But while the actor and his friends certainly drank and went clubbing as 20-somethings in New York, drugs, he says, were never a part of that experience for him. At 39, DiCaprio is now more likely to get caught by the paparazzi riding on bikes around the city with starlets and models than exiting a rager.

The actor said in a The Wolf of Wall Street press conference that he and Jonah Hill prepared for the scenes in which they were high by consulting with the on-set drug expert and watching the YouTube video “The Drunkest Man in the World.”

[LA Times]

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Write to Eliana Dockterman at eliana.dockterman@time.com.