Who would you cast as Rose in Titanic? (Assume Kate Winslet doesn't exist)

Keeley Hawes

Rachel McAdams

Charles Theron

Katie Holmes

Amy Adams

Angelina Jolie

Kate Beckinsale

I'd recast Jack. Leo can't realistically play the leading man in any movie. His nose is too small.

R1 Rachel McAdams is extremely talented and classy, but I can't help finding her a bit boring. She was most exciting to me in Mean Girls. I'd love to see her in more, but I'm not sure how suited she is to grand sweeping romances like Titanic. I also see both Angie and Charlize as too cold for Rose, but their glamour might have worked well. Nice list!

No Vivian Vance, OP?

Shame on you.

Jennifer Aniston with her Rachel hairdo circa 1996?!

Geena Davis and Nicole Kidman were in their late 30s, and would've made for a pretty shifty 17 year-old socialite. Madonna was even older, and would've fucked over the whole movie.

Winona Ryder and Drew Barrymore were the right general age, but they couldn't convincingly master the accent and tone of society women of that era. It would've been another Bram Stoker's Dracula bomb.

Gwyneth never would've landed the part, but she probably would've bent over Jim Cameron's couch anyway. It worked for Harvey!

You need an English ingenue for this part, and Kate Winslet was perfect.

Geena Davis and Nicole Kidman…wouldn’t they have been too old?

Gwyneth lacks the softness in face, body and general demeanor for the character and watching Drew speak out of the corner of her mouth with a lisp would have been too distracting.

Rose Byrne is the only one out the actresses that turned down the role that I can visualize as an alternative to Winslet.

Madonna must have been auditioning to play elderly Rose with prosthetics because there’s no way…

R6…how did we manage this?

R6, Nicole Kidman turned 30 in 1997. But I agree that was still too old for the role.

Lucille Ball was offered the role, but Gary talked her out of it.

Personally, I was rooting for Alice Ghostley or Eartha Kitt.

And for the ship's captain? Charles Nelson Reilly, of course!

Gwyneth would've been a disaster.

Gwyneth, but only if Rose drowns

Never saw it, OP -- what makes you think everyone watched this dreck?

Besides, I figured I already knew how it would end, so why bother?

R14 We didn't ask what you thought of the film. Your opinion sounds like trash anyway.

But do go on telling us the answers to questions no one asked. You clearly love the sound of your own voice.

Madonna? I'm surprised she deigned to audition. She would've been a disaster, plus she was 39 at that time. Rose's age was 17. It would've been Madonna playing Madonna on the Titanic.

Reba was cast as Molly Brown, but had to back out when Cameron took forty years to shoot this shit. Reba had tours to do, so Kathy Bates got the part.

In hindsight, this was perfect. Look up a photograph of Margaret Brown. She looks EXACTLY like Kathy Bates, and Bates did a great job capturing her divided personality. Mrs. Brown was indeed larger-than-life "new money," but she was also a dignified social reformer who spoke four languages and spent her adult life raising money for juvenile courts, vocational schools, and women's suffrage.

No one ever called her Molly in her lifetime, though. Debbie Reynolds helped spread that lie.

Brittany Murphy would have been the right age for this and I think she could have done a great job giving the story a darker or more sinister edge. But it may have conflicted with filming Girl, Interrupted.

Obviously Titanic would have changed her career and perhaps the course of her entire life.

I also DECLINED the role

I voted for Rose Byrne. I loved her character in Damages. Plus she's not bad Rose, with whom I had at times conflated her.

Allison Janney would have been a revelation!

Tori Spelling

I remember reading that James Cameron was reluctant to cast Kate as he had pictured Rose as willowy (i.e. skinny). Kate inundated him with calls until he relented. Kate did a great job with that character. Rose is spoiled and a bit haughty, and has the potential to come across as unlikeable. Kate made her sympathetic.

I would've loved to have seen Madonna's take on Rose:

"Get me off this fucking ship, NOW!!!"

"Um, don't think you're on MY door."

I’d cast an ingénue.

Still no blacks.

Kate Winslet's Heavenly Creatures co-star Melanie Lynskey

You fuking rang beotch?

Winslet is fat and ugly.

How about a lithe young man?

Donald Sinden

Ryan Phillippe gave himself an Ogilvie home perm and he is READY!

Claire Danes wouldn't have done it, she hated Dicaprio after Romeo and Juliet. She said he was completely unprofessional. A total asshole.

Gabourey Sidibe

Anthony Hopkins

Monique

Imagine had Jeremy Sisto won the role. He wouldn't have been doomed to ABC sitcoms and throwaway Law & Order seasons.

I see the racist Republicans who complain about "wokeness" have invaded

Jodie Foster? Maybe in the version where Rose was a 35-year-old lesbian

Winslet was the perfect choice, none of the other women considered were right for the part at all, except for maybe Rose Byrne

OwlKitty, obviously.

No one could have said "Draw me like one of your French girls" onscreen quite like Madonna would have.

I would have liked to see Madonna and Mickey Rourke as Rose and Jack

[quote]Rachel McAdams is extremely talented and classy, but I can't help finding her a bit boring. She was most exciting to me in Mean Girls. I'd love to see her in more, but I'm not sure how suited she is to grand sweeping romances like Titanic.

I was in "The Notebook", bitch.

THE NOTEBOOK!

Or how about Jodie Foster as Rose and Tom Cruise as Jack? The movie could have used some queer vibes!

Who was considered for Jack?

No way that Rose Byrne turned down the role.

At best she said no to an offer to audition because she didn't think she had a chance and therefore didn't want to waste her time.

This was years before her first major Australian role, let an international production, and she later appeared as side-piece parts in crap Hollywood films before she had her big break with "Damages".

That said, she has more range than most of the actresses listed and could have convinced as the bird in a gilded cage who finds the resources to start again on her own.

George Santos was offered the role, but he turned it down. He just couldn't fit it into his busy schedule, even though Leo begged him to reconsider. He did leave his scarf behind at the audition, and told them to use it in the movie.

Michelle Williams was the same age as Rose. She might have been really good.

Schlocky movie, schlocky cast, perfect as is. Even Miss No Talent Gloria Stuart.

[quote]You clearly love the sound of your own voice.

Or the click, click, click of their keyboard.

Uma Thurman - would she have been too old? Most likely too TALL.

[quote0 Gabourey Sidibe

She was in the film but it was a cameo as one of the North Atlantic Right Whales swimming by the bow of the ship alongside the dolphins.

Madonna or Cher

R47, Santos WAS cast but Leo refused to work with Santos stating "I can't work with someone who's prettier than me!"

So they fired Santos

Colin Farrell would have been a great Jack. But I can’t imagine another actress as Rose.

Miss Piggy.

With Kermit as Jack, Janice as Molly Brown, Gonzo as Caledon Hockley, and special guest star Miss Ruth Buzzi as Rose's mother.

JODIE FOSTER? As what, the iceberg??

Joe Manganiello had to turn down the role due to his busy schedule.

[quote]R49 …perfect as is. Even Miss No Talent Gloria Stuart.

SHUT IT, Livy!

No talent, indeed. Gloria was an accomplished painter and book printer whose work is in the permanent collection of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

Meanwhile, you were shooting THE SWARM.

Cameron Diaz would have been awful

Kate was perfect. The singular thing about the movie that rang true was her performance.

Bea Arthur.

Well, if they had hired a more slender actress, then perhaps Jack would have lived.

The problem with Titanic isn’t the casting, it’s the script.

Just imagine how much better it would be if Cameron had hired someone like John Logab do it.

*John Logan

Both Patti Lupone and Glenn Close were offered the role. Cameron let them fight it out on the raft to see who was the better Rose, and they both ended up drowning. He fired them both. Leo wouldn't comment on either actress.

Winslet looked like a fat whore and DeCaprio a pedo wet dream.

^ Ironical those descriptions are now reversed.

Collin Farrell would've been perfect, even better that Leo. He would've electrified the movie!

Yeah, Colin is hotter and a better actor, but I think some of you are underestimating the appeal of Leo at the time, fresh off of Romeo + Juliet.

He was the single reason girls at my high school saw Titanic three, four, five times in the theater.

They asked me too, but I would have to miss school and mother wouldn't allow it!