John C. Reilly has revealed that he once tried his hardest to talk a young Leonardo DiCaprio out of doing Titanic, and into a film about an adult star instead.
The actor shared the story on Ted Danson’s Where Everybody Knows Your Namepodcast, recalling how director Paul Thomas Anderson had desperately wanted DiCaprio to play the lead in Boogie Nightsbefore Mark Wahlberg was cast.
Reilly, who was close friends with Anderson at the time, volunteered to make the pitch personally.
“Give me the assignment, Paul. I’ll get this guy to do your movie. I’ve known him since he’s a kid,” he told the director, having first met DiCaprio on the set of What’s Eating Gilbert Grapein 1993 when Leo was just 17.
The problem was that DiCaprio had already been offered Titanic.
Reilly’s argument for turning it down was, in retrospect, one of the more spectacularly misjudged pieces of career advice in Hollywood history.
“Listen, Leo, let me tell you something. That movie Titanicis about a boat that sinks,” he told him.
“Everyone knows the boat sinks. No one’s going to give a shit about who’s on the boat.”
DiCaprio was torn. His agents were assuring him Titanicwould be enormous.
Reilly was equally insistent, urging him not to miss out on working with Anderson, whom he believed would become one of the great directors of his generation.
“I’m telling you, man. I’m telling you, I wouldn’t give you a bum steer here,” he said. “It’s about a boat that sinks.”
DiCaprio went with Titanic, which remains one of the highest-grossing films of all time and turned him into a global superstar at 22.
Wahlberg took the Boogie Nightsrole to great acclaim.
It took another 25 years for DiCaprio and Anderson to finally work together, on One Battle After Another.
“That was very satisfying for me,” Reilly joked. “It felt like, ‘Finally, he took my advice. It took 25 years or something.'”
2026-06-08 04:02:00
