Robert De Niro has revealed the true story behind one of the most iconic scenes from director Martin Scorsese‘s 1976 thriller Taxi Driver.
“Some of the best stuff, not always, is when it’s improvised,” De Niro, 81, revealed on Live with Kelly and Mark on Thursday, February 20.
The acclaimed actor terrified generations of movie lovers with his portrayal of unhinged taxi driver Travis Bickle, who, in one pivotal scene, stood in front of a mirror and whipped out a gun in an imagined confrontation.
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“You talkin’ to me? You talkin’ to me? You talkin’ to me? Then who the hell else are you talkin’ to? You talkin’ to me? Well I’m the only one here. Who the f— do you think you’re talking to?” Bickle asks his nonexistent foe.
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During his chat with Live hosts Kelly Ripa and Mark Consuelos, De Niro confirmed that the Taxi Driver mirror scene was at least partially improvised.
“The producer [of the film] … said on some show that Marty had said it was all improvised. We had something [on the page], I forget exactly but Marty remembers a lot better than I do,” he admitted.
Ripa, 54, suggested that the partially-improvised scene has become synonymous with De Niro, despite his many memorable roles over a 50-plus year career.
“It seemed right,” De Niro said of the mirror scene, before adding: “[It was] done spontaneously. You don’t know what’s going to [happen]. That’s the fun of working, especially with someone like Marty Scorsese. It’s nice to be able to go here and there, go off, following the scene or the thrust of the story, but you can go here and there. You never know when that stuff is usable.”
De Niro received a Best Actor Oscar nomination for Taxi Driver, though the award went to the late Peter Finch for his portrayal of rebellious newsman Howard Beale in Network. Travis Bickle was later named the 30th greatest movie villain of all time in the American Film Institute’s AFI 100 Years…100 Heroes & Villains poll in 2003.
In the early 2000s, De Niro and Scorsese confirmed they were working on a Taxi Driver sequel with screenwriter Paul Schrader, though the project was eventually scrapped in 2013 because Scorsese was not satisfied with the script.
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Taxi Driver continues to be a cultural touchstone nearly 50 years after its original release, having memorably inspired Arthur Fleck’s (Joaquin Phoenix) descent into madness in director Todd Phillips‘ 2019 film Joker. Another famous De Niro role, deranged standup comedian Rupert Pupkin in Scorsese’s 1983 thriller The King of Comedy, was an influence on Joker as well.
More recently, De Niro attended Saturday Night Live‘s SNL 50 event on Sunday, February 16, where he was featured in a “Debbie Downer” sketch with Jimmy Fallon, Ayo Edebiri and Drew Barrymore. De Niro channeled some of his infamous villain roles by throttling Rachel Dratch‘s Debbie Downer before being pulled away by Fallon.
Live with Kelly and Mark airs Mondays through Fridays in syndication.
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