The reason why Harvey Keitel thought Stanley Kubrick was “disrespectful”
When you think of the gruff American actor Harvey Keitel, Stanley Kubrick is unlikely to be the first director you’d pair with him. Although Keitel is best known for his collaborations with the likes of Quentin Tarantino, Martin Scorsese, Wes Anderson, Ridley Scott, and Abel Ferrara, the esteemed actor worked his way around Hollywood, teaming up with an array of special filmmakers, even coming close to making a film with Kubrick.
Working in TV in the early 1970s, Keitel’s big break would come with the release of Scorsese’s Mean Streets in 1973, forming a close relationship with the director, appearing in his subsequent movies, Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore in 1974 and Taxi Driver two years later. Becoming a major Hollywood star, Keitel had a comparatively quiet decade in the 1980s, working with Scorsese again for The Last Temptation of Christ in 1988 before spreading his wings in the 1990s.
Whilst he had barely broken his typecast persona in the formative years of his career, in the 1990s, Keitel enjoyed a range of interesting collaborations, playing a complex lover in Jane Campion’s Palme d’Or winner, The Piano, in 1993 and a comedic husband three years later in Head Above Water with Cameron Diaz. Indeed, by the time Kubrick came knocking in 1999 for Keitel to appear in Eyes Wide Shut, the actor was keen to collaborate.
The glamorous Hollywood couple Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman were the first to be cast in what would be Kubrick’s final masterpiece, with Jennifer Jason Leigh and Harvey Keitel being brought on board later on in supporting roles. At the time, it was reported that scheduling conflicts meant the pair left the project for Finding Graceland and David Cronenberg’s eXistenZ, respectively, but as time went on, it became clear that Keitel had clashed with the idiosyncratic filmmaker.
Although he calls the director a “genius” in an interview, Keitel decided to quit the project after the director “did some things I objected to”. It is thought that the actor is referring to the countless takes Kubrick would capture of each and every scene, with Keitel stating that he “didn’t like” Kubrick’s demeanour, believing that the director was being “disrespectful”.
Continuing, he elaborates: “I won’t be disrespected by him or anybody… If any actor can help it, they should help it. You don’t want to be fired”.
Keitel was replaced by the filmmaker and actor Sydney Pollack in the role of Victor Ziegler, with the Taxi Driver star moving on to star in the aforementioned movie Finding Graceland, directed by David Winkler. Kubrick’s movie went on to be known as the worst release of his entire filmography, even if modern audiences have reclaimed the feature as a postmodern masterpiece.
Stanley Kubrick tragically passed away shortly before his final film would hit cinemas, leaving some of the cast members to make several decisions about the final cut. This included Cruise and Kidman choosing Cate Blanchett to provide the dub for the voice of the mysterious masked woman at the orgy party after actor Abigail Good could not produce a decent American accent.
