Robert De Niro recommended his own on-screen replacement, as his long-time collaborator Martin Scorsese recalls 30 years later. Sift through all movie history, and it will be hard to find a more successful director-actor combo than De Niro and Scorsese.
Their working relationship began with 1973’s Mean Streets, then went next-level with the one-two punch of Taxi Driver and Raging Bull, the misfire New York, New York sandwiched in between. Their 1982 film The King of Comedy was misunderstood in its day, but has come to be regarded as a classic.
1990 saw Scorsese and De Niro pairing up for the all-time-great gangster film Goodfellas. They worked together two more times in the 1990s, teaming for Cape Fear and Casino. But their next collaboration did not come until 2019’s The Irishman, followed by 2023’s Killers of the Flower Moon.
Nothing calamitous led to De Niro and Scorsese not collaborating for 24 years. It’s interesting, however, that the actor Scorsese did come to favor during that span was someone De Niro worked with, and personally recommended to his favorite director.
Robert De Niro Was The One Who Recommended Leonardo DiCaprio To Martin Scorsese
De Niro Knew DiCaprio From This Boy’s Life
Even as De Niro and Scorsese paused their long collaboration, the director found in Leonardo DiCaprio a new star he could work with on an ongoing basis. After first teaming for Gangs of New York, Scorsese and DiCaprio would go on to make five more films together, all critically acclaimed.
But DiCaprio may never have gotten the chance to star in Gangs of New York had he not received a recommendation from his This Boy’s Life co-star De Niro. Scorsese himself revealed in a 2023 GQ video how De Niro unwittingly tapped his own replacement:
[De Niro] called me and said, at one point, he just made a film called “This Boy’s Life” and he was working with this kid that he cast named Leo DiCaprio. He said, “He’s very good, you gotta do work with him someday.”
This was out-of-character for De Niro, as Scorsese then explained:
And Bob never really used to tell me that, work with somebody, you know, just we’d go from picture to picture if we worked together.
How DiCaprio Took De Niro’s Place As Scorsese’s Go-To Actor
Scorsese And De Niro Became Two Ships Pᴀssing In The Night
Scorsese and De Niro had been discussing making Gangs of New York for years, with De Niro originally set to play Bill the Butcher, the role that eventually went to Daniel Day-Lewis. Ultimately, it was DiCaprio who would star in Gangs of New York, thanks to De Niro. Scorsese explained how this went down in the same GQ video:
DiCaprio liked our pictures, came together, and [De Niro] said, you’ve always wanted to do “Gangs of New York,” we started it many times it got canceled. Here’s our chance, this kid Leo DiCaprio really likes your films, at least meet with him. And he was willing to go whatever I could do to make that film.
Scorsese has detailed how he and De Niro became two ships pᴀssing in the night creatively, each turning down the other’s proposed projects, until The Irishman came along. 24 years would ultimately elapse between Casino and The Irishman, a long pause in the De Niro-Scorsese collaboration that can simply be chalked up to each man being uninterested in what the other had cooking.
De Niro turned down Gangs of New York and The Departed, while Scorsese pᴀssed on directing Analyze This.
DiCaprio’s appeтιтe for Scorsese’s cooking proved insatiable; no shock given the star’s insistence on always working with great directors. Scorsese’s desire to keep working with DiCaprio comes down to the star’s dedication, and the comfort level the two have, as the director explained during an appearance at the 2024 National Board of Review gala (via IndieWire):
I have faith in him. I know I can depend on him. His immersion in the process of the person who’s trying to play within the story is full. His fearlessness is something which has given me life when I make a film.
Scorsese began working with De Niro because they were from the same place and understood each other. The director may not have had the same rapport with DiCaprio at first, but he has come to trust the star in the same way he does De Niro.
Trust is important for Scorsese, it’s clear. That explains why he works repeatedly with the same lead actors. De Niro had his time, but his creative path took him elsewhere. DiCaprio arrived at the perfect time to both boost his own career by teaming with a legendary director, and give Scorsese a trusted star to replace De Niro.
Killers of the Flower Moon saw the three coming together at last, resulting in more great work from all.