‘Titanic’: Which of Your Favorite Celebrities Were Almost Cast as Jack Dawson?
It’s hard to imagine anyone other than Leonardo DiCaprio for the role of Jack Dawson in Titanic. Yet low and behold, several other A-list contenders were more than willing to take on the part. Which of your favorite celebrities were also heavily considered for the role of Jack in Titanic?
Leonardo DiCaprio didn’t even want to star in ‘Titanic’ at first
James Cameron’s Titanic will forever go down in history as one of the most heartfelt cinematic love stories. But believe it or not, DiCaprio was hesitant at first about playing the role of Jack.
The actor didn’t want to take on the offer because he was worried about being type-cast exclusively for romantic heartthrob roles. (He just starred in Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo + Juliet a year before.)
But it was Kate Winslet who managed to convince DiCaprio into accepting his part in Titanic.
According to a Rolling Stone interview from 1998, Winslet practically cornered DiCaprio and begged him to accept the role of Jack Dawson.
As Rolling Stone reports,
“When DiCaprio waffled about signing to play Jack, and both actors were at the Cannes Film Festival, Winslet discovered where DiCaprio was staying, slipped out of a press junket, and collared him in his hotel room.
‘I was thinking, ‘I’m going to persuade him to do this because I’m not doing it without him, and that’s all there is to it,’ she says. ‘I will have him.’ Because he is f*cking brilliant. He’s a f*cking genius, and that was absolutely why.”
Which of your favorite actors could have played Jack Dawson in ‘Titanic’?
As it turns out, several other A-list celebrities could have been cast for the leading role. And in some cases, actors were left heartbroken when they didn’t get the part.
According to HuffPost, here are some of the people that could’ve been our Jack Dawson: Christian Bale, Billy Crudup, Johnny Depp, Brad Pitt, Stephen Dorff, Matthew McConaughey, Chris O’Donnell, River Phoenix, and Macaulay Culkin.
And according to Matthew McConaughey, he was crushed when he learned that he didn’t land the role. “I wanted that,” he confessed, according to Today. “I auditioned with Kate Winslet. Had a good audition. Walked away from there, pretty confident that I had it. I didn’t get it. I never got offered that.”
And as for Johnny Depp? He hated the script. He confessed to Howard Stern that getting through the whole screenplay was “laboring.”
Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet have been best friends since ‘Titanic’
Not only did Titanic prove itself to be a cinematic classic, but it also offered us one of Hollywood’s most precious friendships. Winslet and DiCaprio basically became siblings while shooting Cameron’s blockbuster hit, and their relationship hasn’t fizzled since. In fact, reports say that DiCaprio walked Winslet down the aisle during her wedding. What’s more, Winslet calls her Titanic co-star her “closest friend in the world.”
It looks like they meant it when they promised to “never let go.”
