Martin Scorsese Reveals Which Film Caused Him Unforgettable Stress
Martin Scorsese’s film The King of Comedy is often remembered as one of his darkest and most unsettling works. The 1983 movie stars Robert De Niro as Rupert Pupkin, a man obsessed with fame who takes extreme measures to achieve recognition. To prepare for the role, De Niro did something unusual: he met a real-life stalker who had been following him for years.
Scorsese described the encounter in De Niro: A Life, explaining that the man had been waiting outside with his wife, who looked embarrassed by the situation. “He just wanted to have a drink and chat,” De Niro recalled, noting that the stalker even said his mother asked him to say hello.
It was a strange, almost mundane interaction that highlighted the odd extremes of obsession—the very theme at the heart of the movie. Making the film itself was no easy task. Scorsese struggled with health issues and constant pressure from 20th Century Fox, which made the production stressful.
He leaned heavily on trusted collaborators like editor Thelma Schoonmaker, yet even with support, the stress led to a psychological breakdown. In Scorsese on Scorsese, the director admitted that sometimes he couldn’t even face production messages.
When The King of Comedy finally hit theaters, it was a commercial flop, earning only $2 million against a $20 million budget. The failure forced Scorsese to shift to smaller projects like After Hours, and it delayed his dream of filming The Last Temptation of Christ until he could secure financing in 1986 with the success of The Color of Money.
Despite the setback, the film has since been praised for its eerie look at celebrity obsession, and many critics now view it as ahead of its time, predicting today’s social media-fueled fame culture.
Robert De Niro has continued to stay busy, cementing his reputation as one of Hollywood’s most enduring actors. He recently received an honorary Palme d’Or at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival and has been starring in the Netflix political thriller series Zero Day.
De Niro also received critical acclaim for his dual roles in the mob drama The Alto Knights, which was released in March 2025, and he’s set to appear in the upcoming crime thriller The Whisper Man.
Martin Scorsese, meanwhile, has not slowed down. As of February, he is in Prague preparing for his next film, What Happens at Night, which will be his seventh collaboration with Leonardo DiCaprio.
The movie, a snowbound ghost story, also stars Jennifer Lawrence and Mads Mikkelsen, and is expected to be a strong awards contender for the 2027 season. Scorsese has described the project as an eerie and intimate film that explores fear and isolation in a remote European hotel.
Do you think The King of Comedy was misunderstood when it first came out, or do you see the film’s darker tone as part of what makes it a masterpiece today? Share your thoughts in the comments.
