In Killers of the Flower Moon, director (and co-writer) Martin Scorsese is joining forces for the first time with his two “muses”, the two actors he’s worked with the longest, Robert De Niro (with whom he had plenty of collaborations in his early years, going all the way to Goodfellas and Casino, and much later in The Irishman), and Leo DiCaprio.
Speaking at the official press conference for the film, which The Illuminerdi attended, Scorsese was asked why he’s had so many collaborations with the two actors over his long career. He said:
“Well, in the case of Robert De Niro, we were teenagers together, and he’s the only one who really knows where I come from, the people I knew, and that sort of thing. Some of them are still alive. He knows them. I know his friends, his old friends. And we had a real testing ground in the 70s where we tried everything, and we found that we trusted each other. It was all about trust and love. It’s what it is.
And that’s a big deal because very often, if an actor has a lot of power, and he had a lot of power at that time, an actor could take over your picture. Studio gets angry with you. The actor comes in and takes it over. With him, I never felt that. I never felt that. There was a freedom. There was experimenting and also not afraid of anything. Wasn’t afraid to do something. I just did it.”
How Martin Scorsese Started Working With Leonardo DiCaprio
His partnership with De Niro has of course been well documented over the years, and produced some of the best films of all time, from Raging Bull to Goodfellas to Taxi Driver. It’s one of the most iconic cinematic duos of all time, next to Alfred Hitchcock and Jim Stewart or John Wayne and John Ford. But in the 21st century, as De Niro looked into other types of roles (more check-oriented, let’s say), Scorsese found another actor to have great collaborations with.
It was Robert De Niro himself who recommended Leo DiCaprio to Scorsese after working with him on This Boy’s Life. Martin Scorsese told the story:
“And years later, he told me he worked with this kid, Leo DiCaprio, a little boy in This Boy’s Life. And he said, you should work with this kid sometime. But he didn’t. It was just casual. But with him, something like that, a recommendation at that time, I think in the early 90s, is not casual. He says it casually, but he rarely said that. Rarely tell me. He rarely gave recommendations.
And so years go by, and I’m presented with Leo with Gangs of New York, and we worked together in Gangs. He made Gangs possible, actually. He loved the pictures I’d made. And he wanted to explore the same territory. And so we developed more of a relationship when we did The Aviator. And there was a kind of, towards the end of it, there was a kind of something happening, a maturity with him. Not quite sure, but we really clicked in certain scenes. And that led to Departed, and then that became much closer.”
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Killers of the Flower Moon, co-written and directed by Martin Scorsese and starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Robert De Niro, hits theaters on Friday, October 20.
The collaboration between the three artists is at its highest point in Killers of the Flower Moon, which hits theaters globally on October 20. What is your favorite Martin Scorsese film? What is your favorite film where he partnered up with each of these actors? What other iconic actor-director duos can you think of? Let us know your thoughts on our social media!
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