Trivia / Taxi Driver

• Actor-Inspired Element: When Bickle decides to assassinate Senator Palantine, he cuts his hair into a Mohawk. This detail was suggested by actor Victor Magnotta, a friend of Martin Scorsese's who had a small role as a Secret Service agent and who had served in Vietnam. Scorsese later noted:
  Magnotta had talked about certain types of soldiers going into the jungle. They cut their hair in a certain way; looked like a Mohawk ... and you knew that was a special situation, a commando kind of situation, and people gave them wide berths ... we thought it was a good idea.
• Cast the Runner-Up: Harvey Keitel was originally offered the role of Charles. He chose the role of Sport, even though the character was black and only had three lines.
• Creator Breakdown: The story was partially autobiographical for Paul Schrader, who suffered a nervous breakdown while living in Los Angeles. He was fired from the AFI, basically friendless, in the midst of a divorce and was rejected by a girlfriend. Squatting in his ex-girlfriend's apartment while she was away for a couple of months, Schrader literally didn't talk to anyone for many weeks, went to porno theaters and developed an obsession with guns. Schrader was working at the time as a delivery man for a chain of chicken restaurants. Spending long days alone in his car, he felt—I might as well be a taxi driver. He also shared with Bickle the sense of isolation from being a mid-Westerner in an urban center.
• Creator's Favorite Episode: Paul Schrader considers this to be his favourite film as a screenwriter.
• Darkhorse Casting: Jodie Foster was a relatively unknown player with a few notable credits when she was cast as Iris.
• Dawson Casting: A controversial aversion with 12-year-old Jodie Foster playing a 12-year-old prostitute in a graphically violent film (she turned 13 when the film was finally released). She had to go through psychological analysis to prove she could handle the role, and her older sister acted as her body double for some scenes.
• Directed by Cast Member: Robert De Niro coached Jodie Foster for her scenes, focusing on helping her develop Iris as a character, instead of just reading lines. Foster later cited De Niro's work as the first serious mentoring she'd had for her acting.
• Doing It for the Art: Due to winning an Academy Award for The Godfather Part II between signing on and filming, Columbia Pictures was briefly worried that they wouldn't be able to afford Robert De Niro but he agreed to do the film for the same amount he'd signed on for despite the fact that he could have asked for much more.
• Dueling Dubs: The film has been dubbed in Latin American Spanish four times: the first and second dubs were made in Mexico by Procineas S. C. L. in 1984 and 1998, respectively. The third dub was also made in Mexico by the studio Sonomex in the 90s, but it is currently considered lost media. A fourth dub was made in Argentina by Palmera Record in the 2000s.
• Dyeing for Your Art: Robert De Niro surprisingly did not shave his head for the role (the film was shot out of sequence, and he was shooting 1900 in Italy as well). He did however drive a cab for twelve hours a day, studied mental illness and, while he was on location in Italy for 1900, visited the nearest US Army bases and sought out soldiers from the Midwest so that he could pick up their accent.
• Executive Meddling: In order to avoid the X Rating, the censors asked Scorsese to tone down the redness of the blood in the final shoot-out. Scorsese notes that the censor's decision actually made it even worse somehow. Cinematographer Michael Chapman disagrees however and he regrets the loss of the original colour of the scene.
• Harpo Does Something Funny:
  • The famous "You Talkin' to Me?" scene was written in the script as "Travis talks in the mirror" and the rest was improvised by Robert De Niro. Martin Scorsese was stooped just below the camera silently encouraging De Niro to keep going. What De Niro was saying is a common exercise used by actors to practice different interpretations of a similar phrase.
  • The rest of the movie has this as well. The parts of Tom, Sport, Betsy and The Wizard were supposedly fairly underwritten in the script. The casting of Albert Brooks and Harvey Keitel led to lots of improvisation and expansion, with Keitel's role in particular expanding from a mere five lines to a larger scene of dialog that made him one of the most memorable aspects of the movie.
• He Also Did: Leonard Harris (Sen. Charles Palantine) was a longtime New York-based writer and critic, and this was the first of just two film acting roles during his long career (the 1980 John Ritter comedy Hero at Large was the other, and Harris played a politician there as well).
• Hypothetical Casting: The producers were looking for a "Cybill Shepherd" type to play Betsy. When agent Sue Mengers heard this, she reportedly called them and asked, "Why not hire Cybill Shepherd?"
• In Memoriam: The end credits finish with one of these to Bernard Herrmann, who died just days after completing the score.
• Life Imitates Art: John Hinckley's was inspired to try to assassinate Ronald Reagan because of this film.
• Method Acting: Robert De Niro worked fifteen hour days for a month driving cabs as preparation for this role. He also studied mental illness.
• Playing Against Type: This was the first feature film acting role for Albert Brooks, but he was already well-established as a comedian focused on conceptual and deconstructive humor, so appearing in an edgy drama was an unexpected turn for him.
• Posthumous Credit: Released about a year after Bernard Herrmann's death.
• Real-Life Relative:
  • Martin Scorsese's parents appear as Iris' parents in the newspaper article hanging on Travis' wall at the end of the movie.
  • Jodie Foster's elder sister doubled for her in the more explicit scenes.
• Referenced by...: Has its own page.
• Throw It In!:
  • Martin Scorsese's cameo was completely unplanned as the actor that had been hired got sick. He states he hates being on camera and only did it out of desperation although some thought he did very well.
  • Travis' famous You Talkin' to Me? scene was ad libbed by Robert De Niro. The script called for Travis to look at himself in the mirror, and maybe talk to himself. De Niro adapted a stand-up routine he'd seen in an NYC comedy club, and demonstrated that sometimes changing the context makes things make more sense.
  • Albert Brooks improvised many of his lines.
  • Harvey Keitel and Jodie Foster improvised their scene together.
  • Steven Prince improvised the list of additional illegal things Easy Andy had for sale after Travis buys the gun.
• What Could Have Been:
  • The original screenplay by Paul Schrader had Sport to be African-American and have Travis be more directly a white supremacist-racist. Scorsese was worried that the film could be construed as racist, so he and Schrader went to Times Square "in search of the Great White Pimp".
  • Originally Brian De Palma was to direct the film but he dropped out before Scorsese came out. In an interview that came later, Schrader (who became a director in his own right) noted that if he had directed the film, the movie would be colder, harsher, perhaps in black-and-white and he envisioned the finale as being far more bloodier. He thinks Scorsese did a better a job however, and admitted that the experience made him realize he wasn't ready to direct at the time.
  • Paul Schrader wrote the part of Travis with Jeff Bridges in mind.
  • Melanie Griffith was the first choice for Iris, but her mother, Tippi Hedren, wouldn't let her do it. Rosanna Arquette, Ellen Barkin, Kim Basinger, Linda Blair, Kim Cattrall, Bo Derek, Carrie Fisher, Mariel Hemingway, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Kristy McNichol, Tatum O'Neal, Michelle Pfeiffer, Brooke Shields and Debra Winger were also considered.
  • Mia Farrow reportedly wanted the role of Betsy but Martin Scorsese turned her down. Glenn Close, Faye Dunaway, Farrah Fawcett, Goldie Hawn, Barbara Hershey, Anjelica Huston, Liza Minnelli, Susan Sarandon, Jane Seymour (Actress), Meryl Streep and Sigourney Weaver also turned it down.
  • Martin Scorsese has said he offered the role of Travis Bickle to Dustin Hoffman. According to Hoffman, he turned the role down because he "thought [Scorsese] was crazy!" He has since regretted his decision. Other candidates included Alan Alda, Warren Beatty, Marlon Brando, James Caan, David Carradine, Alain Delon, Richard Dreyfuss, Peter Fonda, Elliott Gould, George Hamilton, Paul Newman, Jack Nicholson, Ryan O'Neal, Al Pacino, Burt Reynolds, Roy Scheider, Martin Sheen, Jon Voight, Christopher Walken, and Michael York.
  • Rock Hudson was once considered for the role of Charles Palantine, but was not able to due to his commitment to the TV series, McMillan & Wife.
  • In the original screenplay, Iris was named Garth and had an attention span of about twenty seconds.
  • The story was originally set in Los Angeles. It was changed to New York because there are more taxis there.
  • In a cast reunion interview, Scorsese said Salvador Dalí was staying at the hotel where the rest of the cast and crew was situated. They said they'd see him every day sitting in the lobby or the hotel restaurant sketching or taking notes; so much so that Scorsese was tempted to stick him in the movie somewhere. But he said that would ruin the dark mood of the film, so he scuttled the idea.
• Write What You Know: Paul Schrader used himself as inspiration; in a 1981 interview with Tom Snyder on the "Tomorrow" show, Schrader related his experience living in New York City while battling chronic insomnia, which led him to frequent pornographic bookstores and theaters because they remained open all night. Following a divorce and a breakup with a live-in girlfriend, he spent a few weeks living in his car. After visiting a hospital for a stomach ulcer, Schrader wrote the screenplay in "under a fortnight", recalling that "When I was talking to the nurse, I realised I hadn't spoken to anyone in weeks ... that was when the metaphor of the taxi occurred to me. That is what I was: this person in an iron box, a coffin, floating round the city, but seemingly alone".
• This film was one of the final films to start with the 1936-1976 Columbia "Torch Lady".

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