Leonardo DiCaprio is expected to finally take home an Academy Award this weekend - at the sixth attempt.

The 41-year-old star is favourite to win the Oscar for Best Actor for his role in the epic and gruelling The Revenant.

DiCaprio, who has been nominated four times for acting and once as a producer, is up against Bryan Cranston, Michael Fassbender, Matt Damon and Eddie Redmayne for the coveted statuette.

He has already won a Golden Globe, a BAFTA and a Screen Actors Guild Award for his performance as guide Hugh Glass.

But snubs by Hollywood's most significant movie body is all the more personal because DiCaprio was born and raised in Tinseltown.

His biographer Douglas Wight told Sky News: "This was someone who certainly wasn't born with a silver spoon in his mouth, wasn't handed fantastic roles in a plate.

"He's had to work for everything he has got and I think that's what makes his achievements all the more remarkable.

"There's probably snobbery in the Academy because he's this pretty boy guy who entered through the mainstream with roles in Romeo And Juliet and Titanic and he's had to work even harder to get proper recognition that a lot of others landed with a gritty role."

Film buffs say DiCaprio has faced stiff competition when nominated for movies like The Aviator and The Wolf Of Wall Street.

Brian McLaughlin, a producer and instructor at LA's film school, said: "I think it was just timing, he was just up against tough competition, not that he isn't this year.

"The Academy also rewards a body of work in a sense, I'm not sure that is always viewed as fair but that's the reality and he deserves it this year and I think the safe money is on him getting it."

Despite DiCaprio's Hollywood roots, there are few signs of his early life here. His childhood home on Hillhurst Avenue in now-trendy Los Feliz has been replaced with a public library.

And there is no mention of DiCaprio in the drama department trophy cabinet at John Marshall High School.

His first Oscar nomination came in 1994 for his performance in What's Eating Gilbert Grape.

His quest for an Oscar has even been turned into an online game. Users can take the role of the star as he chases an award in "Leo's Red Carpet Rampage".

The Revenant has received 12 Oscar nominations also including Best Director for Alejandro G Inarritu and Best Supporting Actor for Britain's Tom Hardy.

(Sky News)