Leonardo DiCaprio seems to be giving advice on how to be a teen heart-throb to young hunk Zac Efron - the pair was spotted joking and laughing together at a basketball game at the weekend.

The pair caught the Los Angeles Lakers game at the Staples Center, and looked the best of friends as they took in the action from their centre-court seats.

And DiCaprio may have used the meeting to tell the High School Musical hunk on how to handle being Hollywood's matinee idol - after he recently insisted he wanted to hand over the reigns to the 20-year-old.

He explains, "I look at young Zac Efron and think 'Go get it pal, leave me in peace.' I was never happy with the teen idol tag at all - never wanted to be a sex symbol or all that stuff - it was the work that appealed to me. Really nothing else. (I have) total respect for how young stars like Zac handle it all. Really total respect."

Efron's new-found heart-throb status mirrors the path DiCaprio took to becoming a teenage pin-up - Efron's roles in the hit High School Musical franchise have propelled him to international stardom as Titanic and Romeo + Juliet did for DiCaprio.