PARIS (AFP) – Leonardo DiCaprio is crossing his fingers for a US election win by Democrat Barack Obama and said Monday he believes the rest of the world is, too.

"I think it is the true ideals and dreams of America to have an African-American president named Barack Obama to be the representation of the United States at a time like this," said DiCaprio, in Paris as co-star of Middle-East themed movie "Body of Lies."

Obama, DiCaprio went on, is "a man that has great policies, a man that is a great intellectual, who knows what he's doing."

"I've my fingers crossed that he will win because I think he'll make some dramatic changes in our country that we're looking for, but the rest of the world is as well."

Talking to reporters about his role as a gritty CIA operative tracking terrorists in Ridley Scott's latest movie on conflict between the West and the Arab world, DiCaprio added that in this troubled world, most countries were rooting for Obama.

Aside the geopolitical issues at hand, the Democrat if elected needed to clean up US environmental action, he said.

DiCaprio, who turns 34 next week, said he was working on new movie projects on the environment following his 2007 film "The 11th Hour".

"I think it's almost impossible to not have a better environmental policy than our last president," he said.

Commenting on less-than-expected sales at the box office for "Body of Lies", in which he stars with an overweight Russel Crowe, DiCaprio opined it might be too early to make popular films about the war.

"Right now these topics have traditionally not been successful," he said. "We're so involved in this war, inundated with information."

"Maybe films on this subject matter will only be sort of seen in theatres in a reflective way, much like the Vietnam war films, where we can reflect on what really happened and really absorb the impact it's had on the country and the world when we've created a little distance."

Source: AFP