{"id":52142,"date":"2025-08-07T13:43:07","date_gmt":"2025-08-07T13:43:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/52142\/"},"modified":"2025-08-07T13:43:07","modified_gmt":"2025-08-07T13:43:07","slug":"titanic-memoir-reveals-how-matthew-mcconaughey-blew-his-audition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/52142\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Titanic\u2019 memoir reveals how Matthew McConaughey blew his audition"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The producer of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nme.com\/films\/titanic\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Titanic<\/a> revealed that <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nme.com\/artists\/matthew-mcconaughey\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Matthew McConaughey\u2019s<\/a> refusal to drop his Southern accent meant he blew his audition for the blockbuster.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nme.com\/artists\/james-cameron\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">James Cameron\u2019s<\/a> 1997 romantic epic was a worldwide phenomenon, and the most successful film of all time until the director\u2019s 2009 film <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nme.com\/films\/avatar\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Avatar<\/a> took the crown. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nme.com\/artists\/leonardo-dicaprio\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Leonardo DiCaprio<\/a> was shot to stardom in the lead as Jack Dawson, the lower-class passenger who falls for upper class woman Rose DeWitt Bukater (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nme.com\/artists\/kate-winslet\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Kate Winslet<\/a>).<\/p>\n<p>The producer of the film, Jon Landau, wrote his memoir The Bigger Picture before <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nme.com\/news\/film\/tributes-paid-to-titanic-avatar-producer-jon-landau-who-has-died-aged-63-3772727\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">his passing in July 2024, aged 63<\/a>. In an excerpt from the book, shared by <a href=\"https:\/\/puck.news\/newsletter_content\/what-im-hearing-ellison-warners-buzz-paramount-yaccarino-flirtation-heat-2-crunch-anistons-apple-issue\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Puck<\/a>, the mogul recalled that McConaughey impressed during his audition, until a disagreement with Cameron led to him being ruled out.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe brought him in to do a scene with Kate (Winslet)\u201d he wrote. \u201cYou want to check for chemistry, not just how people look on film but how they interact. Kate was taken with Matthew, his presence and charm. Matthew did the scene with the drawl.<\/p>\n<p>\u201c\u2018That\u2019s great\u2019 said Jim (Cameron). \u2018Now let\u2019s try it a different way\u2019. Matthew said, \u2018No. That was pretty good. Thanks\u2019. Let\u2019s just say, that was it for McConaughey\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>In 2018 the actor, who would go on to find stardom elsewhere, including winning an Oscar in 2014, talked about the experience from a different perspective. \u201cI went and auditioned for that. I wanted that\u201d he told <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hollywoodreporter.com\/news\/general-news\/awards-chatter-podcast-matthew-mcconaughey-white-boy-rick-1148521\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">The Hollywood Reporter<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI auditioned with Kate Winslet. Had a good audition. Walked away from there pretty confident that I had it. I didn\u2019t get it. I never got offered that\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>In March, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nme.com\/news\/film\/corey-feldman-claims-johnny-depp-had-him-fired-from-whats-eating-gilbert-grape-believing-he-was-a-junkie-3850068\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">The Goonies actor Corey Feldman revealed he was in \u201ccontention\u201d for the role of Jack in Titanic, and that he read for the role before losing out to DiCaprio<\/a>. Late last year, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nme.com\/news\/margot-robbie-listened-to-titanic-music-to-make-her-cry-on-the-wolf-of-wall-street-set-3812241\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Margot Robbie said she listened to the main theme from the film to make her cry on the set of The Wolf Of Wall Street<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The producer of Titanic revealed that Matthew McConaughey\u2019s refusal to drop his Southern accent meant he blew his&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":52143,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[49,48,75,337],"class_list":["post-52142","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-entertainment","tag-movies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52142","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=52142"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52142\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/52143"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52142"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52142"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52142"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}