CNN
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James Cameron is sharing some surprising details from the making of his blockbuster hit “Titanic,” which celebrates 25 years of being released next month.
In a new video interview with GQ, the iconic director revealed that he almost didn’t end up casting Leonardo DiCaprio or Kate Winslet – his two romantic leads whose careers as major Hollywood movie stars were cemented by the landmark Oscar-winning film.
While considering actors to play the roles of his star-crossed lovers on the doomed ocean liner, Cameron explained that he was initially thinking of someone like Gwyneth Paltrow for Rose, and that while Winslet had been proposed as an option, he was afraid she was too much of a typecast.
“I actually didn’t see Kate at first,” he said in the video. “She had done a couple of other historical dramas as well, and she was getting a reputation as ‘Corset Kate’ doing historical stuff.” (It is true that “The Reader” actress’s three credits prior to “Titanic” were also period costume dramas – “Sense and Sensibility” in 1995, followed by “Jude” and “Hamlet” one year later.)
Cameron went on to say that he was afraid that putting Winslet in the role “was going to look like the laziest casting in the world,” but that he nonetheless agreed to meet her in the end. Of course, he thought she was “fantastic,” and the rest is history.
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