Top billing for Deniro?
Honestly, I thought he should have been 2nd if not 3rd. His seemed like a supporting role really. I don't see it.
We’re trying to pretend as if these comic books don’t exist. - David Goyer on the DCEU
When the film was made, all of the actors were unknown and relatively inexperienced. There were no stars in the film.
But, De Niro was the one in the cast who had done the most film work up to that point. He had worked with De Palma on a student film (that later became a feature), and then two early low budget De Palma films. He had had small supporting/character work in several other low budget films, had appeared on TV (in a soap opera and in a commercial), and had done his first studio picture for MGM, "The Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight", the year before. He had also just shot a then-still-unreleased studio film for Paramount, wherein he was second lead, called "Bang the Drum Slowly". So, coming onto the very low-budget indie, "Mean Streets", for very little money, was seen as a step down for him (even though it's the film that wound up finally making him a star). No one had really heard of Scorsese yet, and Keitel had only done a student film with Scorsese, and no one knew him, either.
Scorsese had already known Keitel since 1965, they had done the student film, "Who's That Knocking at My Door?" together. Plus, they'd done a student short doc., "Street Scenes" together. They'd even roomed together at one point. Scorsese wrote "Mean Streets" with Keitel in mind for the lead role. They spent several years trying to get it off the ground. De Niro came on right before filming began. Apparently, De Niro even went to Scorsese and told him that, since he had done the most work in film at the time, was better known than anyone else, and was taking a pay cut, and was the most experienced film actor there, that he should actually be playing the lead role of Charlie, and should get top billing.
Scorsese informed him that the lead was written for Keitel, and wouldn't budge on that. I suppose the compromise was top billing for De Niro.
Sure enough, once the film was released, it was De Niro among the actors who got all the glory. He was the one every critic kept citing, and De Niro won a NY Critics Best Supporting Actor Award. It was there Coppola first saw De Niro, and cast him in "The Godfather- Part II", which then won De Niro a Best Supporting Actor Oscar.
After that, De Niro got huge.
Maybe, I don't know. Not really.
Can't, I'm afraid. Matinee of Le Miz. Christ, I'll call you.
I agree with you entirely, prodigousone, except when you say that Coppola first saw De Niro in Mean Streets. De Niro had already met Coppola when he auditioned for The Godfather, and in fact had been cast in that movie as the treacherous Paulie. However, in order to secure Al Pacino for the part of Michael, Coppola had to get him out of his role in The Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight. Coppola contacted the producers of that movie and put them on to De Niro as a replacement for Pacino. His commitment to that film meant De Niro had to drop out of his small role in The Godfather, which, happily for everyone involved, meant there was no impediment to him being able to play the part of the young Vito Corleone a couple of years later.
These are the only words I have, I'm stuck with them, stuck in themshare