Laverne Cox first met Leonardo DiCaprio when she was a waitress

Laverne Cox felt “like she [was] somebody” when she was in the same nightclub as Leonardo DiCaprio.

The 49-year-old star worked as a waitress when she first moved to New York in a bid to kickstart her acting career but she loved the buzz of knowing she could go out somewhere and be in close proximity to some of the biggest names in showbiz at the time.

She said: “I remember during the early 2000s being in a club called Lot 61…”

“I was a waitress at the time, an aspiring actress…this is 2000…around the year 1999 or 2000…and Leonardo DiCaprio was two feet away from me.

“There were about 12 to 20 women who could be Victoria’s Secret models sort of, you know, surrounding [Leonardo Dicaprio, David Blaine, and Elijah Wood].

“I saw this live. So this was kind of my life, and I remember in the late 90s and early 2000s being in proximity to Leonardo DiCaprio feeling so utterly and completely fabulous because I was two feet away from Leonardo DiCaprio in the same club.

“It made me feel so fabulous and like I was, you know, like I was somebody.”

Laverne’s early experiences came back to her when she was first introduced to Netflix’s ‘Inventing Anna’, the true story of ‘fake heiress’ Anna Delvey, in which she plays Kacy Duke.

Speaking to Tom Power on ‘The Q Interview’ podcast, she said: “When I read about [Inventing Anna] initially, it made me think of my early days in New York City in the 90s.

“Clubs were very integrated in the 90s and early 2000s. You could be in, you know, LimeLight, and Jon-Paul Gautier might be standing right next to you or something.”