The two huge movies Harvey Keitel was fired from
The ‘New Hollywood’ era gave way to new faces in the film world, from directors such as Brain De Palma and Martin Scorsese to actors like Robert De Niro and Harvey Keitel. Desperate to switch up the cinematic status quo and present Hollywood with gritter stories, these filmmakers weren’t scared to pour violence, sexuality and nihilistic themes into their work.
Keitel gained his first starring role in Scorsese’s film feature, Who’s That Knocking At My Door, which received positive reviews, setting both Keitel and Scorsese up for imminent success. The pair have routinely collaborated since, with Keitel appearing in several of the filmmaker’s most acclaimed works, such as Mean Streets and Taxi Driver.
However, Keitel has also become a frequent collaborator with several other filmmakers, including Wes Anderson and Quentin Tarantino. His oeuvre is varied, having starred in critically lauded pictures like Bad Lieutenant, The Piano, Thelma and Louise and Bugsy, as well as commercial comedies like Little Fockers and Little Nicky.
Despite his impressive filmography, Keitel has missed out on adding several stellar movies to the list, including a film that is often considered to be one of the greatest ever made. Unfortunately for the actor, he was fired from two significant productions, the first coming in the ‘70s after he was cast as the lead in Apocolypse Now.
Francis Ford Coppola’s epic war film is highly lauded, with Martin Sheen portraying the main character, Captain Willard. Coming just a few years after Coppola released his celebrated features, The Godfather and The Godfather Part II, the movie further cemented his genius. However, Keitel was fired just a week into production.
Coppola thought Keitel was a fantastic actor. Hence, his firing was not on the grounds of his acting prowess but for more personal reasons. Rather, he realised that Keitel didn’t have the certain something he was looking for to play the leading role. In the book Coppola’s Monster Film: The Making of Apocalypse Now, the director said, “I made the right decision for the picture,” despite it being “difficult”.
That’s not the only time Keitel has been removed from production after a short period of filming. Stanley Kubrick’s final picture, Eyes Wide Shut, was meant to feature Keitel as Victor Ziegler, the role that Sydney Pollack eventually played. However, the reason for Keitel’s firing was much different this time.
Notoriously strict in his directorial style, Kubrick was not the easiest man to work with. Keitel refused to be disrespected by the filmmaker, regardless of his status as one of the all-time greats. Gary Oldman once recalled the incident on SiriusXFM’s Opie and Anthony show.
He revealed that Keitel “was doing the scene, and they were just walking through a door, and after the 68th take of this, just walking through a door, Harvey Keitel just said, ‘I’m out of here, you’re fucking crazy.’ He just said, ‘You’re fucking out of your mind’, and left.”
Elaborating on this, Keitel revealed in a different interview, “I won’t be disrespected by him or anybody.”