Martin Scorsese Once Scared This Actor Away From ‘Taxi Driver’ Before Casting Robert De Niro
Martin Scorsese and Robert De Niro famously teamed up to deliver the 1976 classic Taxi Driver. But before De Niro, Scorsese went to another actor for the iconic role of Travis Bickle.
Martin Scorsese almost cast another actor as ‘Taxi Driver’s’ Travic Bickle
Taxi Driver is one of the many highly respected projects that De Niro starred in. The Scorsese film famously saw De Niro play a lonely taxi driver who turns to vigilantism after growing disgust with his city. Scorsese ended up being in the project thanks to the recommendation of the movie’s screenwriter Paul Schrader. The director wasn’t yet the trusted and experienced veteran he is today, which is why assigning him to film Taxi Driver took a little convincing.
“It took several years to get made,” film producer Michael Phillips once told The Hollywood Reporter. “One day Paul suggested we see a rough cut of [Scorsese’s] Mean Streets, and midway through, I really felt this is our guy. Johnny Boy [played by Robert De Niro] is our actor. So we made a proposal to Marty and Bob’s agent. They both had to do it or neither. I mean it was silly, in retrospect.”
The Raging Bull star and Scorsese both took to Taxi Driver immediately, and had no problem collaborating for the project.
“I reacted very viscerally, almost mystically to it and its tone and the struggle of the character,” Scorsese said.
However, before De Niro, there might have been another actor approached for the role. Veteran star Dustin Hoffman once claimed Scorsese saw him for Taxi Driver. But the director’s personality discouraged Hoffman from doing the project.
“I remember meeting Martin Scorsese. He had no script and I didn’t even know who he was,” Hoffman once recalled according to Irish Examiner. “I hadn’t seen any of his films and he talked a mile a minute telling me what the movie would be about. I was thinking, ‘What is he talking about?’ I thought the guy was crazy! The film is Taxi Driver.”
Robert De Niro drove cabs to prepare for ‘Taxi Driver’
De Niro indulged in a little bit of method acting to prepare for Taxi Driver. To help get into the mindset of Travis Bickle, De Niro drove a real cab through the streets of New York.
“I was doing 1900 in Italy and Marty and I met at Cannes while he was there. We just met up there and worked on the script,” De Niro once said according to Vulture. “And I had been working on it over there before, because when I got to New York I had like two weeks before we were ready to shoot. So as soon as I got back, I started driving a cab, and I thought I’d go for at least 10 days or something, but I drove as much as I could at that period before we had to start.”
But De Niro was already a pretty recognizable face by then. So, according to Scorsese, it was only a matter of time before someone noticed the Oscar winner.
“[Robert De Niro] told me that a guy got in the car and noticed that it was your name on the driver’s license,” Scorsese said. “And he said, ‘My God, he just won an Oscar. Is it that hard to get a job?’”
De Niro remembered quipping to the customer that he was out of work.
“I said, ‘Yeah, I’m still on the unemployment line,’” he said.
Robert De Niro wanted to do a ‘Taxi Driver’ sequel
De Niro once shared that he was interested in revisiting the world of Taxi Driver and Travis Bickle.The Joker actor and Taxi Driver’s original team even went through the trouble of forging a story. But everyone involved simply couldn’t find a way to truly crack a Taxi Driver sequel.
“I said, why don’t we write something? And I talked to Marty and Paul did take a shot at something, whether it was an outline or a script, I forget. But somehow we didn’t feel it was right and it didn’t take off,” De Niro once told The Guardian. “But I’d like to see where Travis is today. There was something about the guy – all that rage and alienation, that’s what the city can do to you. I mean Marty and I are from New York, and even we can feel alienated.”
