Nobody can imagine 'Titanic' today without Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet leading the cast.
It was James Cameron himself who thought of them for the role and even had to face the fact that the studio did not want the actor for the role, but the truth is that the also protagonist of 'The Revenant' was on the verge of not make the movie because he found it boring.
Why did DiCaprio want to leave?
Cameron told People that when everything seemed to be going smoothly and Winslet had also been enchanted by DiCaprio, the actor wanted to back out: "And then Leonardo decided he didn't want to do the movie, so I had to convince him."
The main reason for not wanting to play Jack Dawson is that he didn't see it as a challenge, and we are talking about an actor who a few years before had already said no to a million-dollar offer from Disney to appear in 'The Return of the Witches' because he was more interested in doing 'What's Eating Gilbert Grape', a role for which he got the first Oscar nomination of his career. However, Cameron did not accept this sudden change of mind and explains how he prevented him from leaving 'Titanic':
I didn't want to play a protagonist. I had to twist his arm to be in the movie. I didn't want to do it. I thought she was boring. He only accepted the role when I convinced him that it really was a difficult challenge.
The funny thing is that it was later Cameron who was about to let go of the actor when DiCaprio refused to do a screen test with Winslet to get a better idea of what their chemistry would be like. The actor accepted when the director told him that he would not count on him if he did not do it and later he came asking for changes to the script, especially that his character had some problem or trauma. It was then that the explanation the filmmaker gave him made everything come together, as he recalled in GQ:
I told him: "Look, you've done these great characters and they all have some problem, be it addictions or something else. You're going to have to learn to handle yourself without having any of that. This is not 'Richard III'. When you can do what they did James Stewart or Gregory Peck just standing there... They didn't have a limp, they had some speech problem or whatever. So you'll be ready for that but I don't think you're ready, because what I'm talking about now is something much more. complicated. Those other things were simpler, you had those tools or crutches. This is much more difficult and you are probably not prepared." Everything clicked in his head as soon as I said that, he understood that it was something difficult, a challenging film for him.
And I realized my mistake, he hadn't explained enough what a challenge it was. You want the actor to like you, you want him to be in your movie, you want him to say yes, so you make everything sound attractive. But he didn't want something that was easy, he wanted something that was hard. And that's been his instinct ever since.
'Titanic' is currently celebrating its 25th anniversary and will soon return to theaters for a limited time. Additionally, Cameron has promised to release a piece that will prove once and for all that Jack had to die at the end of the film.
