Leo DiCaprio’s Jack in 1997’s epic Titanic is an iconic role in an iconic movie. It’s almost impossible to imagine the lovable scallywag without Leo’s floppy hair and boyish face.
But Leo’s role in the film was almost a cinema legend that never came to pass, according to a new interview with his Titanic co-star Kate Winslet.
Speaking on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert, Winslet revealed that the actor she auditioned with was actually Paramount Pictures’ first choice, Matthew McConaughey. Really?
“I auditioned with Matthew, isn’t that weird?” Winslet told Colbert. “Never said that in public before. I auditioned with Matthew, which was completely fantastic. It just wouldn’t have been the whole, Jack and Rose, Kate and Leo thing.”
However, the film’s director, James Cameron, insisted on casting Leonardo DiCaprio in the role instead – a decision which has turned out to be absolutely the right call, of course.
Can you really imagine Jack with a Deep South drawl?
Even though it’s now 20 years old, Titanic is clearly still a massive source of fascination for many.
That’s why the film took up a large chunk of Colbert’s interview with Winslet even though she’s promoting her role in the latest Woody Allen film Wonder Wheel.
Elsewhere in the interview, Winslet admitted that she got hypothermia in the Titanic scene in the water, saying she was “really fucking cold”.
She also admitted covering her son’s eyes during the ‘draw me like one of your French girls’ scene. Good job, as no kid wants to see their mum in that way.
Of course, one of the most enduring controversies about Titanic is whether Rose really needed to let Jack perish in the icy depths of the Atlantic Ocean.
Cameron has recently said Jack’s death needed to happen for artistic reasons, but Winslet has jokingly admitted being a snake.
“In the famous line, you say ‘I’ll never let you go, Jack’, but… You do!” Colbert said.
“I lied, I know,” Winslet said. “I lie. I fully lie. I hold my hand up. I let him go. Plus, he just should have tried harder to get on that door.”
The pair then tried to fix the ending with Winslet climbing on Colbert’s desk to recreate the scene – with Jack asking if he can climb on the floating door, too.
A bigger injustice than letting Jack die would have been for Leo DiCaprio not to be in Titanic at all. Let’s just be glad that at least that didn’t happen. Even though Rose should have still let Jack on.
Leonardo DiCaprio almost wasn’t cast in Titanic
Earlier this year, James Cameron revealed that Leonardo DiCaprio almost lost out on his role in 1998’s Titanic.
Inspired by the real-life wreckage of the British RMS Titanic in 1912, DiCaprio, 48, starred as Jack Dawson in the epic romance movie. He played alongside Kate Winslet, 47, who portrayed his love interest, Rose DeWitt Bukater.
However, in an interview with GQ, Cameron, 68, revealed that the actor almost missed out on the part due to an early refusal to read with Winslet.
Reminiscing on the moment, the Canadian filmmaker said: “He didn’t know he was going to test. He came in, he thought it was another meeting to meet Kate.
“And I said, ‘Okay, so we’ll just go in the next room and we’ll just, we’ll run some lines and I’ll video it.”
Cameron then said that DiCaprio, then aged 23, said: “You mean I’m reading?” to which the filmmaker said, “Yeah”.
“And he said, ‘Oh, I don’t read.’ “And I said, ‘Well’, and I shook his hand. I said, ‘Well, thanks for coming by.’
The brutal dismissal seemed to wake an arrogant DiCaprio up, as he apparently said: “Wait, wait, wait; you mean if I don’t read, I don’t get the part, just like that?”
Cameron replied: “And I said, ‘Oh yeah, come on.’ This is like a giant movie, it’s gonna take two years of my life and you’ll be gone doing five other things while I’m doing post-production and all the model work and everything.”
“So I’m not gonna’ f*** it up by making the wrong decision is casting. So you’re gonna read or you’re not gonna get the part.”
The 68-year-old continued to say that the actor agreed to read, but came into the room with ‘every ounce of his entire being’ radiating negativity.
“Right up until I said, ‘Action,’ and then he turned into Jack,” he revealed.
“And Kate just lit up and they went into this whole thing and he played the scene.
“Dark clouds had opened up and a ray of sun came down and lit up Jack. I’m like, ‘All right, he’s the guy.'”
Despite being prepared to let Leo go there and then, Cameron later admitted that it is ‘hard’ to imagine anybody else starring in the romance movie.
“You try to imagine that movie without Leo or Kate,” he told the interviewer. “It’s very hard to do.”
