Martin Scorsese has many frequent collaborators, but there are two who stand out from the rest: Robert De Niro and Leonardo DiCaprio.
Like many other filmmakers, Martin Scorsese has a list of recurrent collaborators, and the ones who stand out are Robert De Niro and Leonardo DiCaprio – but why does he cast them in so many of his movies? Martin Scorsese is one of the most famous and respected names in the film industry, and while he has explored different genres (though all of them rooted in drama) throughout his career, he’s best known for his work in the crime and gangster genres, with movies like Mean Streets, Goodfellas, The Departed, and more, which counted on the presence of some of his frequent collaborators.
Scorsese’s career began in 1967 with the independent drama movie Who’s That Knocking at My Door, but his big break arrived in 1973 with Mean Streets, starring Harvey Keitel and Robert De Niro. Mean Streets was also a breakthrough for De Niro and Keitel, who continued working with Scorsese in other projects, but the bond between De Niro and Scorsese proved to be quite special. Scorsese and De Niro have worked together in a total of ten movies (counting the upcoming Western crime drama Killers of the Flower Moon), and both have found a lot of success and praise from critics while working together.
The chemistry between Scorsese and De Niro is evident in every one of their works together, so with that in mind, it’s understandable that De Niro was cast so often in Scorsese’s projects, especially big ones. A key element in the development of their bond is their shared experiences, as they come from similar backgrounds. Speaking to Esquire while promoting The Irishman, Scorsese explained that De Niro is “the only one who knows where I come from”, the people he grew up around, the way of life, “he knows a gesture. He knows a look in the eye. He knows it”, and that inevitably created a deep connection between them which also made it easier for De Niro to play all those layered characters. However, the pair stopped working together after Casino (1995) and didn’t reunite until 2015 in the short film The Audition and later the crime movie The Irishman, and during that time, Scorsese found another frequent collaborator: Leonardo DiCaprio.
Scorsese has revealed that he heard about DiCaprio from De Niro, who worked with a young DiCaprio in the coming-of-age drama This Boy’s Life in 1993, but it wasn’t until 2002 that they finally worked together in the historical drama Gangs of New York. Since then, Scorsese and DiCaprio have worked on a total of seven projects together, including the short film The Audition and Killers of the Flower Moon. Surely, Scorsese and DiCaprio don’t share the same background like the director does with De Niro, so their connection has been more of a mentor/mentee one, as seen in how fondly DiCaprio talks about Scorsese, his love for movies, and how much he has learned from him. DiCaprio has been named by many as Scorsese’s “new muse”, and he will share the screen with De Niro under Scorsese’s direction in Killers of the Floor Moon.
This new movie surely won’t be the final collaboration between Martin Scorsese and Robert De Niro and Leonardo DiCaprio, and it’s interesting how different but strong their bonds are and how their chemistry has translated into the big screen. Scorsese surely knows how to connect with his actors, so it’s not surprising that he’s one of the most sought filmmakers and many actors have worked with him more than once.
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