Tom Cruise is usually the first name that springs to mind when you consider an actor that takes ridiculous risks to perfect a character or make the depiction as authentic as possible.
Page Contents
He is the epitome of risking one’s safety to get a job. This list includes several performers who have put their safety in jeopardy for acting excellence. Harvey Keitel’s name isn’t often used in these conversations, though.
Keitel, a frequent collaborator of Martin Scorsese, has a fascinating story about how he put himself in dangerous situations to enhance his portrayal in the 1976 film Taxi Driver.
It is also among the best examples of steadfast dedication to work. Of course, his co-star in the movie, Robert DeNiro, made some of his own potentially harmful decisions to understand his role. Keitel could have gone too far, too.
The preparation for “Taxi Driver” by Harvey Keitel
Keitel portrays pimp Matthew “Sport” Higgins in Taxi Driver. The actor had no prior knowledge of being a pimp or what it entailed before the movie began. Harvey Keitel has a reputation for carefully planning and researching each task.
He was known for playing “tough guys” in movies, thus this role matched him perfectly. He was put in a difficult position, nevertheless, because no one knew anything about his character. The roles of Travis Bickle played by DeNiro and Higgins played by Keitel were difficult to prepare for and perfect.
They both started practicing method acting as part of their preparation for the movie. Before filming began, DeNiro, who portrays a night-shift taxi driver, spent two weeks navigating some of New York City’s most dangerous streets in a yellow taxi.
He was curious about what it was like to operate a taxi. To his own fullest extent, Keitel plunged into his drug-fueled position as a pimp. His method of getting ready? Studying from a genuine pimp.
To meet with their managers, Keitel went to Times Square and chatted with sex workers. When it failed, he went through someone to find an actual pimp. He worked with this individual for two weeks.
They alternated between playing the roles of a girl and a pimp, creating and practicing scenes as they did so. He was intrigued by something about that manner of life, or at least he was by what the other man had said.
Regardless of their line of work, he claimed that pimps loved the women they served and would never lie to them. In a December 2015 interview with Collider, Keitel observed, “It took me a bit to realize, to digest that.” I’m unsure if I have.
Kevin Hart not intended to portray a taxi driver
Higgins, played by Keitel, has emerged as one of the most well-known characters of the New Hollywood era. But if not for a change in the script, he might not have landed the role or it might not have even been.
Paul Schrader, who originally envisioned Higgins as a Black character, wrote the screenplay for Taxi Driver. This is how he wrote the screenplay and how the casting was initially conceived.
However, the studio stepped in and asked Schrader to make certain changes to his original screenplay because of how the movie was supposed to end. At the movie’s end, Bickle storms into the place where Higgins does most of his work and opens fire, killing Higgins and others.
When a white man shoots a black man in this scene, Columbia Pictures predicted that there would be unrest. Schrader revised the script to make Higgins a white man as a result. Keitel received the part only after this, and he and DeNiro gave a fantastic performance. The rest is history, as they say in Hollywood.
