Robert De Niro in “Taxi Driver”.Photo:Columbia Pictures
Columbia Pictures
Martin Scorseseis confirming that one ofRobert De Niro’s most memorableTaxi Driverlines was improvised.
The scene in question features De Niro, as New York City night shift taxi driver Travis Bickle, imagining a confrontation that would invite him to threaten someone with a gun. “You talkin’ to me?” he repeats, gazing at himself in the mirror. “You talkin' to me? Well I’m the only one here.”
“He was improvising it,” Scorsese, 81, toldStephen ColbertonThe Late ShowThursday. “We were behind schedule. We were in such trouble.”
The Oscar winner’s fellow producers were “mad,” urging the director to cut and move on from the scene, he recalled. Instead, he encouraged De Niro’s ad-libbing.
“They were banging on the door and I had to go to the door, open the door and say, ‘This is good. This is good. Give me five — two more minutes. One more take, one more take.’”
(Left to right:) Martin Scorsese and Stephen Colbert on “The Late Show”.The Late Show with Stephen Colbert/Youtube
The Late Show with Stephen Colbert/Youtube
He added, “I was at [De Niro’s] feet, because there were no video assistants at the time. And I was saying, ‘Do it again, do it again!’ And he was doing the thing with the moves and the gun.”
“So if you had stayed on schedule, there would be no, ‘You talkin’ to me?’” asked Colbert of one of cinema’s most iconic lines.
“That’s right,” said Scorsese. “That wasn’t in the script, it came from him.”
The scene was also shot in a building near Columbus Avenue and 88th street that is now gone, said theKillers of the Flower MoonOscar contender.
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(Left to right:) Robert De Niro and Martin Scorsese filming “Taxi Driver”.Columbia Pictures/Getty
Columbia Pictures/Getty
With Tuesday’sannouncementof the 2024Academy Awardnominations — which sawKillersnominated in 10 categories including Best Picture — Scorsese became themost-nominated living director in Oscar history. (The late William Wyler holds the record with 12 nods, per the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.)
De Niro, 80, has made 10 feature films with Scorsese at the helm. Alongside leading actressLily Gladstone, he is also Oscar-nominated for supporting actor for his work inKillers.
In hisLate Showinterview, Scorsese also shouted out hisdaughter Francescaand her directing him in several viralTikTokvideos.
“The hardest one,” he remembered with a laugh, was when “she wanted to ask me these questions. And it was feminine hygiene stuff. And I didn’t know the answers.”
Among Scorsese’supcoming projectsin development isThe Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny, and Murder, which will reunite him withKillersstar and frequent collaboratorLeonardo DiCaprio.
source: people.com
