Ethan Hawke Claims He's Relieved He Missed Out On Leonardo DiCaprio's Titanic Role

In the mid-1990s, the film Titanic helped cement Leonardo DiCaprio as one of the biggest actors on the planet.

But it turns out there were a few other A-listers in the running to play Jack Dawson before Leo was cast.

One such hopeful was Ethan Hawke, who tried out for the part before production got underway.

In a new interview with GQ Hype, the Dead Poets Society actor reflected on losing out on the part, admitting that he actually thinks he had a lucky escape.

He claimed: “I don’t think I would have handled that success as well as Leo. He was a fucking Beatle.”

Ethan previously reflected on Leo’s post-Titanic success during a 2010 interview with The Telegraph.

“The girls wanted to fuck him and all the guys wanted to fight him,” he recalled. “I went to myself: ‘Wow man, I’m glad I didn’t get that part’.

“But you know, secretly, I couldn’t help thinking that if I had got it maybe I could have lived exactly the life I wanted to. That I would never have had to worry about my career.”

“Damn DiCaprio!” he joked. “Damn that kid!”

However, Ethan wasn’t the only huge name to try out for male lead in Titanic.

Last month, a story from the late film producer Jon Landau was widely shared, in which he recalled how far through the Titanic audition process Matthew McConaughey made it.

Unfortunately for the future Oscar winner, though, a choice he made during his screen-test with his potential co-star Kate Winslet did not exactly win over the production team (even though Kate herself was seemingly in favour of Matthew being cast).

It’s also worth noting that Leo’s own Titanic audition didn’t exactly get off to the best start – and he almost missed out on the role completely after an awkward back-and-forth with its director.