What if Robert De Niro had never made “Taxi Driver”? The 1976 film and the history of its casting, from Al Pacino to Dustin Hoffman

The story of Taxi Driver, which has returned to cinemas today on its 50th anniversary, is a story of casting. A story of roles that are accepted and rejected, embraced or snubbed. Roles that split, divide, chase, and are learned. Sometimes they are replaced. Travis Bickle would never have existed if Robert De Niro had not accepted it, and Robert De Niro would never have accepted it if Dustin Hoffman had been cast, which he declined. The actor from Tootsie and Midnight Cowboy was Martin Scorsese’s first choice, who tried to quickly sell him the script written by Paul Schrader. Hoffman called it a “madman,” and in 1976, the year Taxi Driver was released, he consoled himself with All the President's Men by Alan J. Pakula. But he wasn’t the first, and he wasn’t the only one. Schrader, who wrote the film during a period of alcoholism and depression, with the work following inspiration from the diaries of the would-be assassin of U.S. politician George Wallace, Arthur Bremer, had worked on the story with another actor in mind. It was Jeff Bridges, whose image the screenwriter had in mind as the character developed, but things went differently, and there’s no need to dwell on it. Words spoken by Bridges himself when asked what he thought about not being part of one of the most important films in cinematic history; a truly "Drugo" phrase, a character that would emerge in 1998 with The Big Lebowski by the Coen brothers.

If for the actor it was a missed opportunity, between Robert De Niro and Al Pacino it was a matter of balance. The role of Travis was also offered to Pacino, who rejected it, while De Niro also turned down the Tony Montana role for Brian De Palma’s Scarface (1983) — years of great refusals for Al Pacino if you think that just a year later, in 1977, the first Star Wars came out, a role in which he could have played Han Solo. But all’s well that ends well, which in Taxi Driver means it ends badly, with Robert De Niro seizing the opportunity to play the deranged taxi driver, for which he actually got a taxi license and inspired the actions of John Hinckley Jr., the man who shot and tried to kill then-President Ronald Reagan. This also involved him commuting between Italy and America since he was simultaneously filming 1900 by Bernardo Bertolucci. For the female role, it was more or less the same. Even Jodie Foster, who was only twelve years old during the production of Taxi Driver, owes her popularity to actresses who turned down two of her memorable roles. While with The Silence of the Lambs in 1991, she had an established career, even winning her second Oscar after the first she received for the 1989 film Accused, in 1976, she was still at the beginning — despite it being her seventh film, and the second directed by Martin Scorsese after Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore.

It was thanks to Michelle Pfeiffer’s refusal that Foster got to play the agent Clarice Starling, while Melanie Griffith declined the role of the prostitute Iris, reportedly under pressure from her mother, Tippi Hedren, the star of Alfred Hitchcock classics The Birds and Marnie. The more problematic scenes were played by her sister Connie, who was in her late teens at the time. It’s hard to believe that even Scorsese himself had to act in a scene as a substitute for an actor who didn’t show up. A mishap, unfortunately, and who knows how much the extra must have regretted her small role in a giant film. An opportunity that allowed discovering one of the most entertaining and enviable talents of the world-renowned director, his acting flair, used sparingly (even in his daughter Francesca's TikToks) and sometimes leveraged for cameos, like the recent one in the brilliant series The Studio. The typical film where all the “ifs” and “buts” can be counted. The point, however, is that, decades later, it’s a title we continue to talk about. You’re talkin’ to me? Yes. No “ifs” and no “buts.”