Earlier this week, Avatar: Path of Water director and screenwriter James Cameron plant with GQ for talking about his latest film. Eventually the famous director went through all of his films and revealed some behind-the-scenes information about every project he worked on. One of them was, of course, Titanica film that became a landmark both for his career and for the cinema itself.
Titanic became the highest-grossing film ever made in 1997 and made superstars out of the lead actors. Kate Winslet as well as Leonardo DiCaprio. At the time, they probably didn’t realize how big it was going to be, but Cameron definitely knew what project he was putting together. That’s why he had a clear idea that the casting of Jack (DiCaprio) and Rose (Winslet) unfortunate lovers must be perfect. During an interview, he revealed that he was initially hesitant to ask Winslet for an audition, which he immediately regretted when he saw her read lines to him. However, for DiCaprio, the casting process started on the wrong foot, and the director could well have gone the other way if Leo had not broken his own rules. Cameron states:
“So Leo came in, of course charmed everyone, me included, and I was like, ‘OK, let’s see what kind of chemistry you have with Kate. So he comes in a couple of days […] he didn’t know what he was going to test. He entered, he thought that this was another meeting to get acquainted with Katya. And I said, “OK, so we’ll just go to the next room and we’ll just run a few lines and I’ll videotape it.” And he said, “You mean what I’m reading?”, and I said, “Yes!” And he said, “Oh, I don’t read,” and I said okay, I shook his hand and said, “Well, thanks for coming.”
Needless to say that Titanic The story could have turned out very differently if DiCaprio had not been angry with Cameron. As the director continues to tell the story, he reveals that the young actor was so frustrated that the director didn’t want to give him the part right away that he decided to audition out of spite. Then the magic happened:
“So he comes in and he’s like… every ounce of his whole being is so negative. Exactly until I said “Action”, and then he turned into Jack. And Kate just lit up, and they plunged into it all and acted out the scene … Dark clouds opened up, and a ray of the sun went down and illuminated Jack. I’m like, “OK, he’s a guy.”
Titanic was at the time of production the most expensive film ever made. It held the title of the highest grossing film of all time for 12 years and was the first film to break the $1 billion mark in ticket sales. Much of that success hinged on the undeniable chemistry between DiCaprio and Winslet, which was supposed to fuel the story for at least over an hour - the immersive sequence doesn’t start until about halfway through the movie. The cast also includes Kathy Bates, Billy Zane, Gloria Stuart, Victor Garberas well as Bill Paxton.
You can watch James Cameron’s full interview below:
Source: Collider
