It’s difficult to envision anybody other than Keanu Reeves as Neo in The Matrix, although DiCaprio came close to being “the One.” The Matrix’s casting staff struggled to find a lead during pre-production. They approached a number of other well-known actors, including Brad Pitt, Sandra Bullock, and Will Smith, but they all declined the part.

When Leonardo DiCaprio was offered The Matrix, he was fresh off his career-defining performance in Titanic. After being excited about the idea at first, DiCaprio decided he didn’t want to commit to another big-budget, effects-heavy feature so soon after Titanic.

After a brief hiatus from the spotlight in the late 1990s, DiCaprio returned in the twenty-first century as one of the most successful movie stars of all time, regularly collaborating with directors such as Spielberg and Scorsese, and he’s never expressed regret for passing on The Matrix, acknowledging that Reeves was the right man for the job.

Jonah Hill Says Leonardo DiCaprio Made Him Watch ‘The Mandalorian’, admits he ‘wasn’t interested’

While filming their Netflix film Don’t Look Up, actor Jonah Hill stated that Hollywood icon Leonardo DiCaprio compelled him to watch the Pedro Pascal-starrer series The Mandalorian.

Leonardo DiCaprio almost portrayed Anakin Skywalker in Star Wars: Attack of the Clones instead of Hayden Christensen, as is widely known. Jonah Hill, DiCaprio’s co-star in Don’t Look Up, is no stranger to almost participating in massive blockbuster pictures. Despite the fact that Dicaprio did not play Anakin Skywalker in the Star Wars prequels, it appears that the Oscar winner is still a major admirer of The Mandalorian.

Hill told W Magazine that he seldom watches science-fiction movies or TV shows because ” used to have a rule: If it didn’t happen or it couldn’t happen, then I just wasn’t interested, because I would lose focus.” DiCaprio persuaded Hill to break his rule and watch the Disney Plus “Star Wars” television series while filming Adam McKay’s Netflix parody “Don’t Look Up.”

AP/Disney

“Leo made me watch ‘The Mandalorian’ when we were making ‘Don’t Look Up,’ and it was like, Baby Yoda was so cute, but I just didn’t give a fuck because I didn’t know anything that it was about,,” Hill remarked.

Hill claimed that he began watching HBO’s Game of Thrones a “couple of months” ago and quickly became enamored with the show. He stated that he had watched the epic fantasy show till season four.

“Game of Thrones is so sick. I know this is hilarious, because I’m in 2012. I’m just watching three episodes at a time, like you would binge any show. But I forget this happened in real time and was like a cultural event.

“So I watched the Red Wedding, as one of three episodes I watched that night. I’m calling friends, like, ‘Oh my god, Robb Stark got killed, blah, blah, blah.’ And they’re like, ‘Yeah, dude. It was like the end-of-Sopranos-level cultural event’,” he added.

Hill claims that he and DiCaprio are close friends. Hill had a brief role and did not appear in any scenes with DiCaprio in their first picture together, Quinten Tarantino’s Django Unchained, released in 2012. In 2013, they worked together again on Martin Scorsese’s Wolf of Wall Street, for which DiCaprio and Hill received Academy Award nominations for Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor, respectively.

McKay’s “Don’t Look Up,” one of the most-watched Netflix original movies of all time, brought the two back together. The film is now available to watch on Netflix throughout the world.