Jodie Foster’s Delightful ‘Taxi Driver’ Behind-the-Scenes Memory: Scorsese and De Niro’s Uncontrollable Laughter During Rehearsal
According to the CinemaDrame News Agency, During a star-studded cast reunion celebrating the 50th anniversary of the legendary film Taxi Driver at the Tribeca Film Festival, Jodie Foster reflected on her time portraying Iris, the 12-year-old runaway, alongside Martin Scorsese, Robert De Niro, and Paul Schrader. One particular memory forever etched in Foster’s mind involves walking onto the set to find Scorsese and De Niro completely overcome with awkwardness and anxiety, unable to stop laughing as they tried to instruct her on how to unzip De Niro’s pants for a crucial scene.
“Marty [Martin Scorsese] was trying to explain to me how to unzip Robert De Niro’s pants,” Foster recalled with a laugh last night at the OKX Theater in Manhattan. “But both of them just kept busting out laughing. Bob [Robert De Niro] would say, ‘I’ll tell her,’ but as soon as he tried to explain what to do, he would crack up too. They couldn’t give me the directorial instruction because they were so incredibly nervous and anxious about how young I was.”
As the giggling fit dragged on, Foster ultimately took charge of the situation herself. “I told them, ‘Look, you just want me to do this… okay, fine! I’ll unzip it, then I’ll do this, and then I’ll move over there. What’s the big deal?!'”
Even half a century later, Foster’s trademark confidence and composure remain fully intact. One of the night’s funniest moments occurred when she bluntly but respectfully urged Paul Schrader to use his microphone to answer questions. Scorsese immediately joked, “Maybe he’s sitting on it!”—only for it to be revealed that Schrader was indeed sitting on his mic.
A Career Formed on Authority and Discipline
That very poise and self-assurance had stunned Scorsese from their very first meeting in his office prior to the production of the 1974 comedy-drama Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore. Foster was only 11 years old at the time and still wearing her school uniform, yet she firmly made it clear that she already had eight years of acting experience under her belt.
Imitating Foster’s serious and determined tone from those early days, Scorsese remembered: “You just sat in that chair and said, ‘Yeah, I can do it. No problem, I get it.’ And then you asked, ‘What’s your next project?’ When I answered, you went, ‘Oh, I have to go to Disney for my next gig.’ She truly possessed a unique discipline and authority. I’m not kidding, she was a total rock during that challenging shoot.”
Foster previously mentioned in an interview with Variety that working with male directors had always been straightforward for her, operating on the philosophy: “Tell me what you want, and I’ll do it.” Her love for cinema began by visiting theaters with her mother, where she was introduced to the French New Wave, European cinema, and Japanese filmmaking. However, it was watching Robert De Niro’s iconic slow-motion walk in Mean Streets that solidified her ambition to become an actor.
Smiling at De Niro, Foster added: “The truth is, I saw Mean Streets as a kid, and that was it. I just wanted to be a part of that world. I would have taken any role you offered. I even tried to get a background role in New York, New York, but because I was under 16, child labor laws wouldn’t allow me to work the night shoots.” It was shortly after that period that she stepped into her career-defining role in Taxi Driver.
