1980’s “Raging Bull” almost did director Martin Scorsese in. In a sit-down with star Robert De Niro at the close-out of De Niro’s Tribeca Film Festival, Scorsese and De Niro discussed the iconic Oscar-winning film with Leonardo DiCaprio.
De Niro says: “The one thing that I always felt is that we didn't know how well it'd do but we knew it'd be a special movie. No matter what, it would be special … because everything we put into it.”
De Niro gained 60 pounds to play the boxer Jake LaMotta in his later years. “The book, for some reason, it wasn't great literature, but something about it, it had a lot of heart,” De Niro said. “So I told Marty, 'Read the book, there's something there. He loses (his title) and gains all the weight and he falls apart in that sense. There's something physically that's so graphic. Maybe I could take the time to gain this weight, see how far we can go with that.' ”