The role Robert De Niro refused to play for Martin Scorsese: “I just didn’t want to do it”
The collaboration between Martin Scorsese and Robert De Niro reached icon status pretty much from the get-go. They first worked together on the 1973 film Mean Streets and have gone on to make ten feature films and counting. There aren’t many cinematic duos that can claim 12 Oscar nominations from their work together. It’s been one of the most fruitful and long-running collaborations in cinematic history, and the two have never seemed to suffer a falling out.
It would be hard to name their most legendary pairing, though Taxi Driver and Raging Bull are certainly top contenders, having helped shape their careers and encapsulate the volatility of the 1970s. Goodfellas and Casino also have their own particularly vocal following. More recently, Scorsese and De Niro have made The Irishman and Killers of the Flower Moon, both of which were lavished with Oscar nominations.
Given how mutually beneficial their professional relationship is, you might assume that both men would leap at every chance to work together, no matter the project, but as it turns out, De Niro actually turned Scorsese down at one point. In a 1988 interview with Rolling Stone, the actor revealed that his friend had come to him at some point early in the decade and asked him to play a part he absolutely did not want to play – Jesus Christ in The Last Temptation of Christ.
“I just didn’t want to do it,” De Niro explained. “I didn’t see myself [as Christ], even though Marty wanted to do it in a way which was much more connected to reality. To play Jesus is like playing Hamlet; it’s like everybody’s done it.”
“Do I look like I can play Jesus?”
robert de niro
It was an odd comment, given that Jesus Christ is not, in fact, anywhere close to Hamlet in terms of his frequency as a film or theatre character, but it’s easy to see why an actor might not leap at the chance to play such a high-profile historical figure. Such a portrayal is bound to be contentious, no matter the nature of the project, and it just so happens that The Last Temptation of Christ was one of Scorsese’s most controversial films. With its depictions of its titular character battling doubts about his faith and his struggle to quell sexual desire, it incited outrage from some branches of the Christian community and put the director in hot water.
It was Willem Dafoe who ultimately took on the title role, and he earned widespread praise for his performance. The film itself was polarising even outside of the religious context. It earned both Oscar nominations and Razzie nominations, and continues to be one of the director’s more contentious works.
When he turned down the film, De Niro gave Scorsese a pretty ironclad reason for doing it. “At that time, I had my head shaved because I was doing Once Upon a Time in America,” he explained. “And I took my hat off, and I said to Marty, ‘Do I look like I can play Jesus?’” He had a point. He probably could have grown his hair out or gotten a custom-made Christ wig and gone ultra-Method, but his appearance certainly wasn’t hitting the nail on the head at that particular moment.
