Who doesn’t know actor Christian Bale? Thanks to the long list of iconic roles in his career, the actor has become a fan favorite. There is simply no denying his skills when it comes to bringing different characters to life. Batman from The Dark Knight trilogy, Patrick Bateman from American Psycho, and Alfred Borden from The Prestige are just a few iconic roles he has taken over in his career.
However, Christian Bale almost had another iconic role added to his filmography – Jack Dawson from Titanic. Yes, that’s right, the role which quite possibly made Leonardo DiCaprio a household name could’ve had the face of Christian Bale, instead. We wonder how that would have turned out!
Christian Bale as Jack Dawson?
Just like Rose, the audience, too, will “never let go” of Leonardo DiCaprio’s brilliant work as Jack Dawson in the James Cameron-directed Titanic. His sacrifice to save the love of his life is forever going to be etched into our minds. However, if things didn’t work out the way they did, Kate Winslet’s character would be promising Christian Bale that she’s going to live a long life, instead of DiCaprio.
The Hollywood Reporter had Bale and Scott Cooper over for a discussion and somewhere in their conversations popped up the topic of the $2.2 billion making, Titanic. Bale mentioned the film during the interview and Cooper interrupted him asking, “Didn’t you audition for that?”
Bale replied that while he wasn’t going into that side of the story, he had indeed auditioned for the film, adding that he was really bad at auditions.
“I wasn’t going to go into that, but yes…I am really bad at auditions. I’m terrible. I’ve never been good at them…I can’t do ‘em. They’re nothing like working. They’re not related in the slightest.”
He concluded that statement by thanking God that he didn’t have to do auditions anymore. Bale stated that he might someday choose to go to a few auditions sometime in the future. However, at the moment he is just relieved that those days are behind him.
According to Bale’s publicist, Harrison Cheung, the actor was shot down from playing Jack simply because of his British accent. In his book, Christian Bale – The Story of the Darkest Batman, Cheung time-to-time termed DiCaprio as Bale’s nemesis. The reason behind it was that the latter had lost a few of his roles to the former.
“DiCaprio. The name burned Christian like a branding iron…Over the years, Christian had lost This Boy’s Life and What’s Eating Gilbert Grape to DiCaprio…Christian too had gone up for the part of Jack Dawson in Titanic but was told that James Cameron didn’t want two British lead actors playing the two leads who were both supposed to be American.”
Well, looks like one of the most desirable accents of all time became Bale’s Achilles Heel! However, it was perhaps for the better because DiCaprio perfectly embodied the character and made it his own.
Christian Bale has a Different Approach to Choosing Films
The topic of Titanic came up because Bale was describing the kind of movies he prefers doing as an actor. He stated that while being aware and doing movies that people would want to see was important, it was also important for him to do movies that he would want to see.
“Of course, you want to be aware, and you want to make something that is hopefully going to be seen. With every film you make, you should aim for it to be the best film that you’ve made, but for me, it’s always just about, ‘What do I want to see? What do I want to work on?’”
After Titanic, Bale was certain of the fact that he wouldn’t waste his time thinking if people would want to see the particular film. If the American Psycho actor found a movie interesting, he would simply trust his gut on the decision. No one can tell Bale what he should or should not do.
Titanic is available to stream on Disney+.
Source: The Hollywood Reporter
