He’s sitting in a room that smells like stale cigarette smoke and desperation. He’s staring at himself. Not just looking, but searching for a version of a man that hasn't been hollowed out by Vietnam. Most people remember the Mohawk. They remember the blood. But when you look at Robert De Niro in Taxi Driver, you aren't just seeing a performance; you’re seeing a guy who literally became a ghost in New York City just to figure out how to stand in front of a camera.
Honestly, the "You talkin' to me?" scene is almost a distraction at this point. It’s a meme. It's on t-shirts. But back in 1975, it was just a man in a condemned building on 88th Street, improvising because the script was basically just a suggestion. Martin Scorsese was literally sitting at De Niro’s feet on the floor because they didn't have video monitors back then. They were behind schedule. The producers were banging on the door, screaming at them to finish.
Scorsese just kept saying, "One more. Do it again."
The Cab License That No One Noticed
You've probably heard the trivia. "De Niro drove a cab." People say it like he did a couple of ride-alongs. No. He actually went to the NYC Taxi and Limousine Commission, got a real hack license, and worked 12-hour shifts. This was while he was already an Oscar winner for The Godfather Part II. Imagine being a New Yorker in the mid-70s, hailing a yellow cab, and the guy driving you is Vito Corleone.
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It actually happened. One passenger recognized him and asked, "Didn't you just win an Oscar?"
De Niro’s response was peak Method: "Well, that’s acting. One year the Oscars, the next year you’re driving a cab." He wasn't joking. He was deep in the pocket. To play Travis Bickle, he needed that specific, grinding New York exhaustion. He spent a month picking up people in the "filth" he’d eventually monologue about. He saw the city when the garbage strikes were in full swing and the heat was melting the asphalt. That grit isn't a Hollywood set. It's real grime.
Losing the Weight and Finding the Voice
Travis Bickle is a man who is physically shrinking while his ego is expanding into something dangerous. To get that look, De Niro dropped about 35 pounds. He didn't just diet; he became obsessive. He spent time at an army base in Northern Italy—where he was filming 1900 at the same time—and recorded soldiers from the Midwest. He wanted that flat, detached Midwestern accent. He wanted to sound like a man who was from "nowhere" even though he was everywhere.
He also listened to tapes of Arthur Bremer’s diaries. Bremer was the guy who shot George Wallace. If you listen to Travis’s voiceovers, they have this rhythmic, haunting quality that feels like someone reading a suicide note they haven't decided to send yet.
- The Diet: Black coffee and a solitary apple or tin of tuna.
- The Workout: 50 pushups and 50 pullups every single morning in a cramped apartment.
- The Mindset: Total organization. Every muscle must be tight.
Why the Violence Still Feels Different
There's a reason the final shootout in Taxi Driver looks so weirdly dark. It’s not just "art." It was a bribe for the ratings board. Columbia Pictures was terrified the movie would get an X rating because of the sheer amount of blood. To fix it, Scorsese muted the colors. He turned the bright red blood into a dark, brownish-red.
Ironically, this made it more disturbing. It looks like old, dried gore. It feels heavy.
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When Robert De Niro in Taxi Driver finally snaps, it isn't a hero moment. It’s a messy, fumbling, horrific explosion of a man who has no other way to communicate. Paul Schrader wrote the script in about two weeks while living in his car, basically going through a mental breakdown himself. He wasn't writing a "vigilante" movie. He was writing about the "man in the iron box." The taxi is the box. The city is the void.
The Misconception of the Hero
People often mistake Travis Bickle for a hero. They see the mohawk and the guns and they think "cool."
They're wrong.
Travis is a "god’s lonely man" who is actually just a deeply unwell person looking for a reason to exist. If he hadn't saved Iris (played by a 12-year-old Jodie Foster), he would have just been another headline in the Daily News. The ending of the film—where the media treats him like a hero—is the ultimate irony. He’s a ticking time bomb that just happened to blow up in the "right" direction.
What You Can Learn From the Performance
If you’re a creator or just someone who appreciates the craft, the lesson here isn't "drive a cab for a month." It’s about the commitment to the uncomfortable parts of a character. De Niro didn't focus on the "cool" parts of Travis. He focused on the awkwardness. He focused on the way Travis can't make eye contact. He focused on the painful phone call in the hallway where the camera literally pans away because the rejection is too hard to watch.
Next Steps for the Film Buff:
- Watch the "Phone Call" Scene Again: Notice how the camera moves away from Travis to the empty hallway. Scorsese did that because the scene was too painful to watch head-on.
- Listen to the Score: Bernard Herrmann finished the music just hours before he died. It’s the sound of a city's heartbeat stopping.
- Read the Screenplay: Compare Paul Schrader's original descriptions to what De Niro brought to the screen. The "You talkin' to me?" line isn't in there.
Don't just watch Taxi Driver as a classic. Watch it as a case study in how to disappear. De Niro didn't just play Travis Bickle; he let the city of New York in 1975 chew him up and spit him back out.