When Matthew McConaughey was announced as the Best Actor winner at the 2014 Oscars, he stopped to give fellow nominee Leonardo DiCaprio a hug before taking the stage. DiCaprio kissed his cheek, patted his back, and whispered something in his ear. Maybe it was "Congratulations." Maybe it was "Whatever, dude, I still got Titanic."
According to Kate Winslet — and she would know — McConaughey actually auditioned for the role of Jack, the tragic character DiCaprio would eventually play in Titanic.
"I auditioned with Matthew, which was completely fantastic," Winslet confirmed during her appearance on The Late Show Thursday night, as host Stephen Colbert quizzed her on Titanic trivia in honour of the film's 20th anniversary. "[It would have been a] totally different film. It just wouldn't have been the whole Jack and Rose/Kate and Leo thing."
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A Titanic without Leo? That's the opposite of "alright, alright, alright." The film, which went on to win Best Picture, sealed the actor's status as a leading man. McConaughey, meanwhile, ended up starring in an Oscar-nominated film about a very different sort of ship that year: Steven Spielberg's slave trade drama Amistad, which opened just nine days before Titanic. The two actors would eventually act together in Wolf of Wall Street, the film that fetched DiCaprio the very Oscar nomination that lost out to McConaughey's performance in Dallas Buyers Club. Funny how things work out.
Titanic fans will find it worth watching Winslet's entire interview. Here, she disses "My Heart Will Go On," admits that Rose kinda did Jack wrong, and reveals that it was director James Cameron who did those "draw me like one of your French girls" sketches.
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