The movie audition Robert De Niro bombed: “My skin was crawling”
Robert De Niro is at that stage in his career where he can walk into any room and demand anything he wants, and not just in an acting capacity. He could stroll up to the front gates of Buckingham Palace, demand to wear the crown, and King Charles would have no choice but to polish it for him.
It wasn’t always that easy, though. Like every great, Martin Scorsese’s favourite had to earn his place at the top, putting himself through gruelling audition after gruelling audition, often just to be told no. He famously went up for the part of Sonny Corleone in the first Godfather movie, only to lose out to James Caan. This obviously all worked out in the end – De Niro landed the part of a young Vito Corleone in the sequel – but, in another lifetime, this could have damaged the rising star’s confidence beyond all repair.
Sonny wasn’t the only part De Niro missed out on during his auditioning days. In 2014, the Los Angeles Review of Books celebrated 50 years of Robert Altman’s California Split by sitting down with some of the names involved in this cult favourite about the dangers of gambling. One of them was Joseph Walsh, the screenwriter and producer of the project. He told a fascinating story about how the Raging Bull actor was brought in to audition for the part of Charlie Waters. However, things didn’t go as he would have liked.
“We couldn’t find the right combination to pitch the script. Back and forth, it went on for two months,” Walsh explained. “I had seen Mean Streets. I saw it in the afternoon in the theatre across the street from New World. I said, ‘I just saw some guy, this guy is ridiculously good. The guy could be a great Charlie.’ And so Altman said, ‘Bring him in.’ He came in. Bob tried to explain California Split, and it was such… my skin was crawling.
Continuing, he added: “The pitch was so bad. So I jumped right in front of Altman, and I said, ‘Bob [De Niro], here’s California Split. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. And, of course, his eyes were coming alive, and that’s what it was.’ But Bob [Altman] explained it, ‘Well, it’s two guys. They gamble. Um, um, um …’ My head was just going down.”
Charlie is one of the main characters in the movie, one half of a duo alongside fellow gambling addict Bill Denny (George Segal). The pair experience the highs and lows of life in the casino, along with the two sex workers that Charlie calls his roommates. Following De Niro’s difficult encounter with Altman, the role went to Elliott Gould instead, who had previously collaborated with the director on The Long Goodbye.
According to Segal, this was the director’s way of letting the actor know that “he didn’t want him”. Mean Streets had only just come out, and De Niro was not the powerhouse he would become. The Godfather Part II was released the same year as California Split, which must have been an incredibly humbling moment for all involved in the latter.
One of the biggest challenges of being an actor is getting back on your feet after you’ve been knocked down. De Niro might have missed out on this role, but little did he know that he was mere months away from his career taking off and California Split becoming a mere footnote in his life story.
