It has previously been rumoured that the actor was offered the lead role opposite Kate Winslet, but after he turned it down it was given to Leonardo DiCaprio.
“So I went and read with Kate Winslet and it was not one of the auditions – they filmed it so it was like into screen test time,” he said.
He added: “I asked [James] Cameron about this, because the gossip over the years that I heard and would see written about me was that I had the role in Titanic and turned it down.
McCounaughey joked: “For a while I was saying, ‘I gotta find that agent.