It’s hard to imagine James Cameron’s Titanic without the iconic pairing of Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio as Rose and Jack, but in another world, the role of Jack could have been played by Matthew McConaughey.
In his upcoming memoir, The Bigger Picture, the late Jon Landau recalled McConaughey’s audition for the part of Jack. Although the actor was well-liked, with Winslet said to be “taken” with his “presence and charm,” he refused to drop his signature Texas drawl.
“We brought him in to do a scene with Kate [Winslet],” Landau wrote. “You want to check for chemistry — not just how people look on film, but how they interact. Matthew did the scene with the drawl. ‘That’s great,’ said Jim [Cameron]. ‘Now let’s try it a different way.’ Matthew said, ‘No. That was pretty good. Thanks.’ Let’s just say, that was it for McConaughey.“
McConaughey commented on his Titanic audition in a 2018 interview with THR. “I wanted that,” he said. “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.” Winslet also recalled the audition on The Late Show in 2017. “I auditioned with Matthew, which was completely fantastic,” she said, but added that it would have been a “completely different” movie if McConaughey had been cast instead of DiCaprio.
Our next helping of McConaughey will arrive with The Lost Bus, a survival thriller based on the 2021 book Paradise: One Town’s Struggle to Survive an American Wildfire by Lizzie Johnson. The film is “a white-knuckle ride through one of America’s deadliest wildfires, as a wayward school bus driver and a dedicated school teacher battle to save 22 children from the terrifying inferno.” The film will have its world premiere at the 2025 Toronto International Film Festival next month, and is slated to be released in select theaters on September 19 and on Apple TV+ on October 3.
Do you think Titanic starring Matthew McConaughey and Kate Winslet would have worked as well?
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