Leonardo DiCaprio's Wolf of Wall Street performance was inspired by a "drunk guy" on YouTube.
DiCaprio portrays real-life criminal trader Jordan Belfort in the Martin Scorsese film.
One scene shows DiCaprio's character so high on Quaaludes he crawls to his car in desperation to get home.
Speaking at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival, the actor admitted he had some interesting inspiration for the scene: a YouTube video called "Drunkest Guy Ever Goes for More Beer".
"It's not just the fact that he was sort of elasticated and trying to get [up], it was his motivation that was really intriguing," DiCaprio told the crowd.
"He had one singular goal, one that was to get a beer out of the 7-Eleven, and it took him a half an hour.
"And he was writhing around the floor. And people were watching and scratching their heads saying, 'What are you doing?' He just wouldn't stop reaching for something that was a life-sustaining force for him."
The 10-minute YouTube clip shows the stumbling man eventually leaving the store while a patron makes a phone call, one could presume to police.
And People reports DiCaprio said he "obsessively" watched the clip to prepare for the scene when his character was under the influence of the drug.
The 39-year-old also said he spoke with the real-life Jordan Belfort "about what it was like being on Quaaludes because I've never done it.
"... He said, 'Look. You think that you're operating the same, but the mechanics of what your brain thinks and what your body actually physically manifests are two entirely different things,'" he recalled.
"But the way Marty [Scorsese] holds it, this wide shot. And he just waits for me to crawl there. Took forever. It felt like 10 minutes for me to just writhe over there," he said.
DiCaprio was at the Film Festival last week to accept the Cinema Vanguard Award for his role.
