According to Martin Scorsese’s ‘Taxi Driver’ and ‘Raging Bull’ screenwriter, Leonardo Dicaprio should have played the detective in ‘Killers of the Flower Moon’ instead of its murderous “idiot” character.
Leonardo Dicaprio should have played the detective in ‘Killers of the Flower Moon’, screenwriter Paul Schrader has said.
Paul, 77, wrote Martin Scorsese’s ‘Taxi Driver’ and ‘Raging Bull’, and says if he had worked with the director on his epic about the slaughter of Osage Native Americans in the 1920s he would have cast DiCaprio differently.
He told France’s Le Monde: “Marty compares me to a Flemish miniaturist. He would be more the type who paints Renaissance frescoes.
“Give him $200 million, a good film will inevitably come out of it.
“That said, I would have preferred Leonardo DiCaprio to play the role of the cop in ‘Killers of the Flower Moon’ rather than the role of the idiot.
“Spending three-and-a-half hours in the company of an idiot is a long time.”
Scorsese, 81, originally intended for DiCaprio, 49, to play investigator Tom White in ‘Killers’ instead of Ernest Burkhart, who conspires with Robert De Niro’s villainous town leader to slaughter Osage members for rights to their oil.
The part of the FBI detective went to 35-year-old Jesse Plemons.
Scorsese has told The Irish Times it was DiCaprio who personally called him requesting a script change and a change in his part.
He said: “Myself and (my co-screenwriter) Eric Roth talked about telling the story from the point of view of the bureau agents coming in to investigate. “After two years of working on the script, Leo came to me and asked, ‘Where is the heart of this story?’ I had had meetings and dinners with the Osage, and I thought, ‘Well, there’s the story.’
“The real story, we felt, was not necessarily coming from the outside, with the bureau, but rather from the inside, from Oklahoma.”
DiCaprio’s real-life character Ernest Burkhart was a World War I veteran who got pulled into his uncle’s greedy plot to rob the Osage Nation of its wealth, with his loyalty was tested once he married a wealthy Osage woman named Mollie (played by Lily Gladstone), who he helps to slowly poison.
Scorsese told Time magazine while writing the original ‘Killers’ script he realised he was “was making a movie about all the white guys… meaning I was taking the approach from the outside in, which concerned me”.
On the same day that Glastonbury welcomed back Margate's adopted sons, The Libertines, Margate itself put on it's very own Leisure Festival as it...
Sheffield's very own all girl group Pretty Fierce are still on a high after the recent release of their debut single - 'Ready For Me'.
Three nights before the end of his current tour Will Varley returned to his home town of Deal to delight a sold out crowd in The Astor Theatre.
With only a few days to go before Portsmouth based songstress and producer WYSE releases her new single, 'Belladonna', we caught up with her to find...
Colorado raised, Glasgow educated and Manchester based Bay Bryan is nothing if not a multi-talented, multi-faceted artist performing as both...
Former Marigolds band member Keelan Cunningham has rediscovered his love of music with his new solo project Keelan X.
Wiltshire singer-songwriter Luke De Sciscio, formally known as Folk Boy, is set to release is latest album - 'The Banquet' via AntiFragile Music on...
Electronic music pioneer and producer Annie Elise says that the release of her first EP - 'Breathe In, Breathe Out' feels "both vulnerable and...
Ben Affleck launched his directing career 10 years ago with his film of Dennis Lehane's...
A wrenching saga of survival and revenge, Alejandro G. Inarritu's new epic is just as...
Hugh Glass is a skilled hunter, experienced in trapping some of the most predatory of...
Coarse and not exactly subtle, this dark drama might disappoint viewers expecting a more traditional...
At age 71, Martin Scorsese proves with this riotous romp that he's one of the...
It's a wild ride of drinking, drugs, debauchery and deception when the ambitious Jordan Belfort...
Jordan Belfort started out his stockbroker business in a tiny office with a small group...
Clearly something went horribly wrong as this thriller was being made, because despite a solid...
Jordan Belfort is a successful stockbroker, multi-millionaire and motivational speaker from New York who had...
Baz Luhrmann (Moulin Rouge) is the perfect director to take on F. Scott Fitzgerald's iconic...