5. He Almost Starred In Titanic And Pirates of The Caribbean
Movie folklore is filled with examples of well-known actors either turning down or missing out on famous roles: Will Smith was offered the part of Neo in The Matrix but struggled with the unusual concept, Tom Selleck was first choice for Indiana Jones but missed out because of his commitment to TV show Magnum P.I., and Sean Connery passed up the chance to play Gandalf in The Lord of the Rings. So naturally there are a few stories of Christian Bale narrowly missing out on some famous roles and a lot of them feature Leonardo DiCaprio. It has often been reported that Bale auditioned for the role of Robin in Batman Forever but he has since denied this, although DiCaprio was apparently on the final shortlist. Harrison Cheung, who was Bales publicist and assistant for many years, released a tell-all biography about Bale a couple of years ago and claims that his former employer was overlooked in favour of DiCaprio for This Boys Life, Whats Eating Gilbert Grape? and Romeo & Juliet. Cheung also claims that Bale was in line to star in Titanic until James Cameron allegedly decided against casting Brits in both lead roles. Bale was also apparently under consideration for the part of Will Turner in Pirates of the Caribbean before Orlando Bloom was chosen instead, and he turned down the part of George Bush in W. amid concerns over the prosthetics.
I watch movies and I watch sport. I also watch movies about sport, and if there were a sport about movies I'd watch that too. The internet was the closest thing I could find.
