The moment Leonardo DiCaprio almost lost out on his ‘Titanic’ role: “Just so negative”
What if Leonardo DiCaprio hadn’t played Jack Dawson in Titanic? Imagine if some other actor – Brad Pitt perhaps, or, God forbid, Jared Leto – had walked down that sweeping staircase, danced the night away with the plebs, or planted his feet at the bow of the ship to proclaim himself the king of the world? That is not a reality we want to live in.
DiCaprio had a kind of youthful, almost childlike charm and energy that none of his contemporaries could have achieved. Brad Pitt might have had the smouldering looks, and Ethan Hawke might have had the vulnerability, but DiCaprio stole the hearts of a generation of teenagers in a way that no one else could have dreamed of matching.
However, director James Cameron revealed that it might never have happened. DiCaprio could have been left to his own devices in the wilderness of Hollywood to bridge the gap between minor teenage star and Oscar-winning Scorsese favourite all on his own. Having enjoyed a fair bit of acclaim by the time the role of the ill-fated Jack was up for grabs, the 20-year-old felt a certain level of entitlement that did not mesh with Cameron’s famously no-nonsense directorial sensibilities.
DiCaprio was scheduled to come in for a meeting and a screentest. The meeting went swimmingly. In Cameron’s memory, the young actor charmed everyone, including the director himself. But when he came in for the screentest with Kate Winslet, however, things went sideways. It seems that he didn’t realise he was being asked to audition for the part, and he had absolutely no intention of doing so.
“He said, ‘Oh, I don’t read,’” Cameron remembered in an interview with GQ. The director was having none of it. “This is like a giant movie,” he responded. “It’s going to 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 going to fuck it up by making the wrong decision in casting.”
That got the actor’s attention, but it didn’t make him any more enthusiastic about having to test for the role. He came to the reading emanating attitude. “Every ounce of his entire being is just so negative,” Cameron recalled. But he overcame his airs and graces and did the scene, and the moment he stepped into character, it was as if he was a different person. “Dark clouds had opened up and a ray of sun came down and lit up Jack,” the director said.
In fairness to DiCaprio, there aren’t many actors who relish the idea of auditioning. Once you reach a certain level of fame, you don’t usually have to do it anymore, and by the time DiCaprio was meeting Cameron, he had reason to believe that he was in that league. He had already earned an Oscar nomination for his performance in What’s Eating Gilbert Grape, so it was reasonable for him to assume that his auditioning days were behind him. After Titanic became a record-smashing hit, they were, without question, a thing of the past.
