I got really into Martin Scorsese as a teenager, so then it was kind of the whole reason I wanted to be an actor. Just like tons of young actors, I think, get freaked out by the Scorsese/DeNiro movies. I loved all his movies in the '90s, too. Then I got a part in 'The Aviator' and couldn't believe it.
Every little interaction I had with Scorsese is forever tattooed on my brain.
My heroes were people like Jim Jarmusch. Scorsese was my god. Spike Lee was exciting, doing exactly what we thought we were going to do: personal movies based in, and about, New York. My heroes were all participating in an economic model that was collapsing as I was finishing film school.
I like so many different directors: Scorsese, Coppola, Cassavetes, Jarmusch, Gus van Sant, Woody Allen and the greats like Fellini, Bergman, Tarkovsky and among current filmmakers von Trier, Ang Lee, Wong Kar-wai.
In Goodfellas they have this one scene where the camera goes down some steps and walks through a kitchen into a restaurant and the critics were all over this as evidence of the genius of Scorsese and Scorsese is a genius.
I would love to work with Dustin Hoffman, John Malkovich, Omar Epps, Martin Scorsese, Josh Mond, Woody Allen, Paul Thomas Anderson, and David O. Russell, just to name a few. Those guys are absolutely brilliant at what they do.
Everybody wants you to do this thing that you've always been doing forever. That's what they want: they want Martin Scorsese to make the same film two hundred times rather than trying to be something different.
I am a filmmaker. That is all I've ever been. You know, Martin Scorsese makes films about the mob. And I make movies about food.
Leo couldn't deliver Mr. Martin Scorsese his Oscar with 'The Aviator', but I will go on record to say I will do so in 'The Departed'.
I mean, I'm always happy to be compared with Scorsese!
