The story about “Titanic” is of course a cinema myth in itself: the rise of two world stars, a completely out of control production (the studio was already planning with an expensive mega flop), “I am the king of the world” and 11 Oscars.
However, James Cameron planned everything a little differently than one can imagine today. In an interview with GQ, he not only boasted about how much money he ended up making from the disaster romance romance, but also revealed that Kate Winslet was far from being the first choice to play Rose.
“I have Kate [Winslet] couldn’t see in the role of Rose at all at first,” says the director, whose latest film, “Avatar 2”, will be released in cinemas in a few days. “I was thinking more of Gwyneth Paltrow.” The ex-wife of Coldplay singer Chris Martin, who won an Oscar for her performance in Shakespeare In Love a year after Titanic and cried more on stage than most Viewers at the end of “Titanic” revealed in a 2015 conversation with radio host Howard Stern that she was one of the last people to be considered for the lead role in “Titanic”. She denied the rumor of turning down the role.
Leonardo DiCaprio wasn’t too keen on Titanic at first
Things weren’t easy with Leonardo DiCaprio either. As Cameron now confirmed in the interview, the then very young actor had not even read the script for the film when he was invited to a scene rehearsal with Kate Winslet. When DiCaprio confided in him, the director just shook his hand and said goodbye. To which the actor replied, “What, I really need to read this to get the part?” Cameron then gave him a little lecture: “Oh yeah! This is a huge production, it’s taking up two years of my life and you can take on five other roles while I’m in post-production. I’m not gonna fucking make the wrong casting decision now. So now you sit on your buttocks, read it and get the part.”
The rest, of course, is history: DiCaprio at least pretended to read the script and gave a critically and audience-adored performance as survivor Jack Dawson. Even more than his talent, which DiCaprio quickly gilded in Hollywood, Cameron was surprised that the mime was in a very bad mood at the first rehearsal, basically making a “piss face” only to be immediately after the call to “Action!” began to shine. According to the director, this was also due to Winslet, who inspired him and probably made a different person out of DiCaprio on the set.