Martin Scorsese has worked with Leonardo DiCaprio six times and Robert De Niro ten times. And it’s not just the two ‘Killers Of The Flower Moon’ stars who have already appeared in several of the 80-year-old’s films: Joe Pesci and Harvey Keitel have also appeared in front of his camera more than once – and Daniel Day-Lewis , Tom Cruise, Willem Dafoe, Adam Driver, Jack Nicholson and Nicolas Cage are just some of the actors who have taken the opportunity to star in a Scorsese film.
But while the acting greats regularly line up when Scorsese assembles the cast for a new film, the living directing legend also has many wishes left unfulfilled: There are some Hollywood stars with whom the “The Wolf of Wall Street“-director would have liked to work together again – but for various reasons it never happened.
These two stars were at the top of Scorsese’s list
On the one hand, there is Marlon Brando, who today is mainly associated with two masterpieces by Francis Ford Coppola: “The Godfather” and “Apocalypse Now”. On the other hand, Barbara Stanwyck, a versatile icon of old Hollywood, who in the course of her more than 60-year career was able to shine in comedies such as ‘The Cardsharp’ and in the film noir of Billy Wilder. ‘Woman without conscience’.
As Scorsese also revealed at the Montclair Film Festival, he would have loved to film with Spencer Tracy and Barbra Streisand – but only in the case of the latter is it not too late (even if the last film with the 81-year-old was 11 years ago) : Tracy died in 1967, when Scorsese’s career was just beginning. Stanwyck died in 1990 at the age of 82 and Brando died fourteen years later.
At one point, Scorsese was even about to embark on a film project with Brando and Stanwyckas he told The Late Show with Stephen Colbert (via variety) – but in the end it didn’t happen. When asked if he ever spoke to Brando, the director replied: “Oh yes, we spoke. And he just knew everything. He was a genius.”
By the way, not only did Brando almost star in a Scorsese film, he also tried to talk him out of another film project: “GoodFellas – Three decades in the mafia“. “You don’t want to do that again,” the Oscar winner (“The Fist in the Neck”) is reported to have said in reference to Scorsese’s previous gangster film experience with “Witches’ Cauldron” (1973) – but ultimately it was with Michael Powell (“The Red Shoes”), another legendary film director who convinced Scorsese to make the mafia film that would eventually launch a slew of other gangster movie masterpieces (from “Casino” to “The Irishman”).
By the way, Scorsese is working with Leonardo DiCaprio for the seventh time on his next film: ‘The Wager’ is based on the novel of the same name by David Grann and revolves around a memorable shipwreck in the 18th century.