The Martin Scorsese movie Robert De Niro refused two roles in: “It just didn’t seem possible”
It’s often the case that a filmmaker has a few actors they consider their favourites, working with them repeatedly and honing a trusted rapport. For Martin Scorsese, several stars have become frequent collaborators, like Harvey Keitel and Leonardo DiCaprio, but it’s Robert De Niro who stands as his favourite, appearing in ten of his movies.
The pair met properly at a Christmas dinner hosted by Brian De Palma, but they’d actually grown up living close to each other. “Bob was sitting there after dinner and then he looked at me and they had gone inside or something. He said, ‘You used to hang out with so-and-so and so-and-so.’ I said, ‘Yeah, how do you know?’ And he said, ‘I’m Bobby.’ I said, ‘Bobby? Bobby. Oh my God,’” recalled Scorsese during an interview at the Tribeca Film Festival.
They first collaborated on Mean Streets in 1973, which earned acclaim and helped to push both De Niro and Scorsese further into the cinematic limelight. However, it was Taxi Driver, released in 1976, that sealed the deal, winning the Palme d’Or at Cannes and cementing the pair as an indomitable duo. It appeared that the pair just understood what the other needed, and their collaborations didn’t show any sign of stopping for the next few years.
De Niro appeared in New York, New York in 1977, which failed to garner as much acclaim, but that didn’t deter the actor from working with the filmmaker again. They followed the musical romance with Raging Bull, a monumental effort that won De Niro an Oscar.
What is it that allows the pair to work so well together? Perhaps it’s their similar upbringings in New York and mutual understanding of one another that has carried their friendship and working partnership through decades of success, paired with their shared love for rich storytelling and the power of cinema? It often feels like something cosmic brought the two together, because it wouldn’t be outlandish to call them cinematic soulmates.
Despite their many collaborations, there have still been times that De Niro has turned Scorsese down. One of these instances was in the mid-2000s when the filmmaker was casting The Departed, which featured DiCaprio, Jack Nicholson, Matt Damon, Martin Sheen, and Ray Winstone. It was a rather stacked cast, and one can imagine seeing De Niro’s name among them, but he had another project in mind that prevented him from joining the production.
Talking to Total Film, De Niro revealed that he was supposed to play Nicholson’s role as Frank Costello, a character inspired by the real-life gangster Whitey Bulger. “I wanted to,” the actor revealed before explaining, “I wish I could’ve been able to, but I was preparing The Good Shepherd so much that I couldn’t take the time to.”
Even though he “was trying to figure a way to do it while I was preparing,” in the end, “it just didn’t seem possible.” The Good Shepherd was directed by De Niro and also starred Damon, and while it wasn’t as successful as The Departed, it was a project the actor was passionate about making, even if that meant sacrificing working with Scorsese again.
Not only did he turn down Nicholson’s role, but he also rejected the chance to play Sheen’s role as Charlie Queenan. According to Scorsese, De Niro “didn’t want to do it,” telling Deadline that the pair have sometimes gone years without doing a production together because “people change.” Still, since turning down The Departed, De Niro has appeared in two more Scorsese features, The Irishman and Killers of the Flower Moon.
