During a sit down with Dax Shepard on his 'Armchair Expert' podcast, the 'Homeland' star claims to having 'zero regret' in turning down the female lead role for the Oscar-winning blockbuster.

• Jan 29, 2020

AceShowbiz - Claire Danes has "zero" regrets about turning down "Titanic", insisting she had no interest in the level of fame the film brought Leonardo DiCaprio.

The "Homeland" actress reveals she bowed out of consideration for the Oscar-winning blockbuster, letting the lead role ultimately go to Kate Winslet back in 1996, largely because the part felt all too familiar. The actress had just wrapped Baz Luhrmann's "Romeo + Juliet" with DiCaprio, and was looking for a different type of venture.

"I had just made this romantic epic with Leo in Mexico City, which is where they were going to shoot 'Titanic'!" she said during a sit down with Dax Shepard's Armchair Expert podcast. "And I just didn't have it in me!"

The 40-year-old recalls DiCaprio himself wrestling with the decision to take on the James Cameron epic, recounting a conversation they had outside their mutual manager's office.

"And he just looked up at me and said, 'I'm doing it! I'm doing it!' " she said. "And I could see he wasn't sure. But he was like, 'F**k it, I gotta do this thing.' "

Danes added that she could not see herself grappling with the global attention the actor received following the film's release.

"And I looked down at him, and I was like, 'I totally understand why you're doing that. And I'm not ready for that.' And I think I really wasn't ready for it. And I remember after that movie came out... and he just went into another stratosphere."

She noted she has "zero regret" after noticing a swift change in how people treat her former co-star.

"I think I may have sensed that I was courting that (level of fame) or I was proximate to that... and I just couldn't do it. I didn't want it. I was just really clear about it. I wasn't conflicted," she insisted.

As for whether or not anything romantic happened between the pair while they were filming the classic Shakespearean love story, she believes off-screen love was not written in the stars for them.

"That was just never going to happen," she explained, while admitting there was a "crushy" vibe between the two. "I didn't know how to go about that... we're really different people."