Exploring the many annotated scripts of Robert De Niro
Robert De Niro has created an untouchable legacy in the world of cinema. With 60 years in the business comprising at least 140 film appearances, the actor is one of the most respected practitioners of his craft. De Niro has seen it all and done it all, venturing into numerous iconic projects and securing his place in American entertainment history through his impeccable talent.
As a student of the Stella Adler Conservatory and Lee Strasberg’s Actors Studio, De Niro is a staunch advocate of method acting. Method actors initially identify, understand, and experience a character’s inner motivation and emotions, as conveyed through memory work. It is proposed that method acting results in naturalistic and believable performances, as argued by the process of identification and experience.
De Niro elaborated on his acting style during an interview with filmmaker Kenneth Branagh. He discussed finding a balance between the good and bad, approaching the task as if it were a formula. “Each problem is individual. I know that it really doesn’t matter whether you spend a lot of time trying to prepare – unless it’s worked for you,” the star explained. “My way is to not worry about things until I know what to do, and I’m there.”
An example of De Niro employing method acting and this outlook in his work resides in Martin Scorsese’s influential classic Taxi Driver, where De Niro stars as Travis Bickle. Bickle is portrayed as a troubled veteran who now drives a taxi cab to occupy his sleepless nights. The character also has a dark and violent undertone, resenting his city’s filth. To achieve a naturalistic performance, De Niro obtained a cab license and studied the behaviour of cab drivers.
In addition, he lost 30 pounds in weight and went under firearm training to lend authenticity to his character’s violent tendencies. When observing the responses he received for his work in Taxi Driver, it would seem that this dedicated process was more than worth it. Bickle is a film icon, his line “You talkin’ to me?” is referenced countless times in pop culture, and De Niro received an Oscar nomination for the role.
Another exciting and insightful process the actor engages in is annotating his scripts and jotting down all the exterior and interior essentials the character employs. The exterior elements are the costumes, props and previous narrative events, whereas the interior refers to De Niro’s thoughts on the character’s inner motivations and opinions. Essentially, De Niro showcases a balance between what the director and writer have provided for him and what he can make of the role and bring to it on his own. This alludes to a healthy relationship between the director/writer and the actor.
De Niro once explained his reasoning for annotating the scripts, referencing how it requires time and work outside of shooting. “I always look at everything. The important thing is to think it all out. Sometimes I write down my ideas. The main thing is to put in the time – even if it’s boring,” he said. “Then you know you’ve connected every possibility when you make your choices. Sometimes I practice the nature of a person’s lifestyle, which I undertook in my characterisation of Michael.”
One example of this is his annotations on the Raging Bull shooting script, another film directed by Scorsese. On the first page, De Niro demonstrates his noting of props, costumes, motivations and, as the role is a boxer, fight techniques. The actor writes next to lines, “always find ways to express self thru body,” demonstrating how De Niro is utilising the character’s career to communicate who he is as a person. He is dignifying and progressing the director and writer’s creations by ensuring he employs every detail in his performance to elevate the character and, in turn, the story.
De Niro then reflects on developing unique character traits, severing the person from the artist/actor. He writes: “remember, I’m not a fighter”. However, he then illustrates his character’s goal: “just concentrate on knocking the motherfucker out.” He also includes specific references to the fight in the opening scene, demonstrating an objective and overall understanding of the film concerning this one scene. Again, De Niro is celebrating the script, showing that every line and sequence matters to the next or the one that came before. The writing is a whole picture made of parts.
The actor also employed the annotation technique for Taxi Driver. In this script, De Niro has marked all references to his character during the gun sequence in red, including “dry firing” and “here’s where I practice with 30-07 too”. The actor also outlines his movement to accompany a line or point in a scene: “this is where I fold my arm and whip out a gun”. Through this identification of physical objects, De Niro is upholding his previous lessons, as Konstantin Stanislavski called this method “the super-objective,” proposing it be viewed as the story’s spine. In this process that incorporates props with narrative and characterisation, the actor gels these external actions with the character’s motivations and objectives, all to heighten the performance and emphasise how everything you see on film is significant.
De Niro also invests in the object of the mirror seen in the sequence, as in the script, he writes: “Mirror thing here” and then underlines: “His eyes are glazed with introspection.” The actor is again dignifying and considering what the screenwriter has put out for him to elevate it by incorporating his own ideas. These ideas became one of the film’s most significant elements, as the line “You talkin’ to me?” was improvised by De Niro himself.
This improvisation is interesting when you compare it to the script line: “he sees nothing but himself”, referring to Bickle looking in the mirror. The line shows that the character is speaking to an imagined antagonist, who is also himself. Through Scorsese’s direction, Paul Shrader’s writing and De Niro’s elevation of the surface on the page, an insightful thematic value is added to the story, one that implies the character’s psychology and showcases the film’s trope of character study.
Scorsese has never missed an opportunity to express his love and appreciation for De Niro, as well as what he does for his work. “He got what I was trying to do in that picture,” Scorsese once said (via IndieWire). “As we kept working together and became close friends, a kind of artistic partnership came into being. It had to do with our shared experience, building from that, but always exploring new territory, always wanting to surprise ourselves, to discover values and colours that we’d never envisioned.”
De Niro employs what he writes on a script to construct a quality performance. He doesn’t let the script be just a face-value guidance. Instead, he transcends the directions because he realises that the character can exist beyond the page, humanising them with the same goals and outlooks we all experience.
