Cameron has not gotten past Titanic personally and is still digging around in it rather than the Terminator world, making it his psychological apex; it is his apex in cultural significance if not filmmaking technique, and five Avatars will not outdo it.
A fatal flaw of Avatar is that handsome Sam Worthington's face barely appears, whereas Leonardo DiCaprio's face means so much to Titanic; another host wants evidence that Worthington can act first.
Billy Zane gets the award: a tour de force, very handsome, astonishing on the rewatch when he throws the table over.
At the end, searching for Rose on the deck of the Carpathia, he looks so emotional that he clearly loves her under it all; the performance is not flashy and sits within the ensemble.
Earlier, Zane was called fantastic and possibly the best pure acting performance in the film.
Robert De Niro was offered Captain Smith but declined over a gastrointestinal infection (unverified IMDb); Winslet improvised spitting at Billy Zane instead of stabbing him with a hairpin (unverified); the film was Cameron's pitch to get a studio to pay for dives to the wreck; Cameron was difficult on set and Winslet swore never to work with him again (unsourced IMDb); the 2h47 runtime matches how long the ship took to sink (unverified); the drawing scene was Winslet and DiCaprio's first scene together and Cameron did the drawing
An unverified IMDb item says Robert De Niro was offered Captain Smith but turned it down because of a gastrointestinal infection; the hosts find the specificity absurd and say there is no way De Niro would have taken the role.
The scene in which Kate Winslet spits at Billy Zane was reportedly improvised: he did not know he would be spat at, and she was supposed to stab him with a hairpin; the hosts hope it reflects on-set tension.
Billy Zane is called fantastic in the film and perhaps the best pure acting performance, with the most to work with, believable as a man with everyone in his pocket; the necklace, Le Coeur de la Mer, is recalled as the propulsive force of the plot.
The whole movie was a pitch to get a studio to pay for James Cameron to dive to the Titanic, and he ended up spending more time with the ship than anyone who rode its one voyage.
Research on how difficult James Cameron was during filming: Kate Winslet, studio executives and everyone on set describe him as demanding and cursing a lot, Winslet had a horrific experience, Leo seems to have hated it too but is more diplomatic, and an IMDb item the host could not source says Winslet swore never to work with him again.
Unverified half-assed trivia holds that the film's runtime, two hours and 47 minutes, matches how long the Titanic took to go down (the transcript has 'save'); the hosts find it tacky but very James Cameron, like the iceberg hitting exactly mid-film.
More trivia: the first scene Kate and Leo shot together was the nude drawing scene, James Cameron made the drawing, and the shot was reversed so the left-handed Cameron would look right-handed, setting the tone on day one of principal photography.
Kate Winslet had to do a screen test, watchable online, opposite Jeremy Sisto, Elton from Clueless, who auditioned but probably was not in contention; the major name in contention for Jack Dawson was Matthew McConaughey.
Stephen Dorff is the verified one: a New York Daily News piece headlined 'actor is thankful he didn't get Titanic role' has the Blade co-star saying he wanted a career like Johnny Depp, Sean Penn and Jack Nicholson and an Oscar, which Titanic would have made impossible, and that Leo will always be the guy on the boat.
One host disagrees that Leo is the guy on the boat, since he has been in so many hits and everyone has a favorite Leo, whereas Matt Damon and Ben Affleck are more locked into their 90s work; Sofia Coppola is said to have made Somewhere with Dorff because he never blew up, and Titanic will be in the first line of DiCaprio's obituary, and of Billy Zane's.
Billy Zane has not done much anyone has heard of since, though he has been in three times as many films as Kate Winslet.
Chris O'Donnell, named on Wikipedia for Jack, would have been a great and adorable Jack given his Batman movies and a season-two television arc, but could not have taken the film past a billion dollars; Leo is singular and the chemistry is enduring, though he seems strikingly innocent and little in it.
Rob Lowe was in the mix for Cal and is a great asshole, as in St. Elmo's Fire; pre-West Wing he might not have pulled viewers out of the film, though one host says he would have a little, and the leads mostly had blank or clean reputations at the time, which the hosts think mattered.
