When you think of an actor taking silly risks to perfect a character or make the role as realistic as possible, Tom Cruise is probably the first name that comes to mind. He personifies putting yourself in danger because of position. This list contains some of the names of actors who put themselves in jeopardy for a perfect performance. However, Harvey Keitel’s name is rarely used in these conversations.
Keitel, a frequent collaborator of Martin Scorsese, has a great story of how he put himself in dangerous situations to perfect his role in 1976’s Taxi Driver. This is also one of the examples. the most typical example of unwavering commitment to work. Of course, his co-star in the film, Robert DeNiro, made his own, perhaps destructive, decisions to understand his character. However, Keitel may have gone too far.
Preparing Harvey Keitel for ‘Taxi Driver’
In Taxi Driver, Keitel plays pimp Matthew “Sport” Higgins. Before the movie started, the actor knew nothing about being a pimp or what it entailed. He has always been known for his preparation and thorough research on each job. This part confirms his reputation for playing “tough” roles in movies. However, being ignorant of his character has put him in a difficult situation. Both DeNiro’s Travis Bickle and Keitel’s Higgins are challenging pieces to prepare and perfect.
In the process of preparing for the film, the two practiced acting methodically. DeNiro, who plays a night shift taxi driver, spent two weeks driving the yellow cab on the most dangerous streets of New York City before production began. He wanted to know what life behind the wheel of a taxi would be like. For his part, Keitel immersed himself in the role of a drugged pimp. His prep technique? Learn from a real-life pimp.
Keitel went to Times Square and talked to sex workers in an attempt to meet their manager. When it doesn’t work, he searches for a real pimp through someone. He spent two weeks working with this person. They take turns playing a girl and a pimp, devise and rehearse scenes and learn how to live. There was something about that lifestyle that intrigued him, or at least what the guy told him. He says that pimps love their women and never lie to them, no matter what they call them. Keitel noted in an interview with Collider in December 2015: “It took me a while to learn and absorb it. “I’m not sure I made it.”
Harvey Keitel shouldn’t have played a taxi driver
Keitel’s portrayal of Higgins has become one of the most prominent roles of the new Hollywood era. But if it weren’t for the script change, he probably wouldn’t have gotten the role, or maybe none at all. Taxi Driver was written by Paul Schrader, who first saw Higgins as a black man. He created the script this way, and the actors were originally planned with this in mind.
However, due to how the film was supposed to end, the studio stepped in and asked Schrader to adjust some elements of his original script. At the end of the film, Bickle enters the facility where Higgins does most of his work and shoots it, killing Higgins and the others. Columbia Pictures predicted that this scene, in which a white man shoots a black man, would cause riots. As a result, Schrader rewrote the script to make Higgins white. Only then was Keitel selected and put on an incredible performance against DeNiro. As they say in Hollywood, the rest is history.
Categories: Entertaintment
Source: HIS Education