2. Leo DiCaprio Was Almost Anakin Skywalker
Ignoring the rumours that emerged recently via Latino Review that Leo was up for a role in Star Wars Episode VII (and turned it down in favour of Robotech), since they were pretty much only the first in a long line of erroneous rumours that came out ahead of the Star Wars VII casting announcement, the actor was also linked to the franchise before that point. During George Lucas' seemingly exhaustive search for the young Darth Vader for Attack Of The Clones, he met with hundreds of actors before coming to the unthinkable conclusion that Hayden Christensen was somehow the best option. Among that troupe of options, which included a vast number of mostly unknown actors, Lucas also met with DiCaprio, but as his publicist Ken Sunshine noted, the actor was "definitely unavailable". Presumably that unavailability can be traced back to Gangs Of New York, which was slated to start filming about the same time as Episode II, but it's hard not to weep at the missed opportunity of having someone as accomplished as DiCaprio in the lead.