Things we know for certain about Robert De Niro: he’s an acclaimed actor whose career is still going strong after over 50 years—and his outspoken personality means he’s no stranger to controversy. His feelings on Donald Trump are well-documented, but apparently Killers of the Flower Moon producers Apple would rather De Niro keep his spicer remarks under wraps when they’re being made adjacent to the Academy Awards contender.
In a new interview with Rolling Stone (via IndieWire), De Niro elaborated on his on-stage comments that Apple attempted to censor his speech at last month’s Gotham Awards, as recorded in the Hollywood Reporter and other sources. He also noted that Killers of the Flower Moon director Martin Scorsese, who De Niro has collaborated with frequently over the years going back to 1973's Mean Streets, had a hand in passing the message along.
“What happened was I was working on the speech with a writer, Lewis Friedman, and he gave it to them, and then one of the consultants had put something in the speech about how kids in Oklahoma aren’t even able to read the book Killers of the Flower Moon,” the two-time Oscar winner explained to Rolling Stone. “And then I didn’t hear anything. They gave me the script, and I looked at the prompter, and I asked after, ‘What happened?’ And they assumed that I had spoken to Marty [Scorsese] or somebody about it, but I hadn’t. They assumed that I would be OK with it, and maybe I’m still getting it wrong, and I wasn’t. Marty and I spoke about it the next day and he said, ‘Yeah, I had sent you a text and [Apple] asked if you could dial it down, respectfully.’”
Killers of the Flower Moon is still in theaters, and earlier this month became available for streaming on demand. So far there’s no date set for its anticipated arrival on Apple TV+.
Update, 12/20, 3:47 p.m.: Apple responded to Gizmodo’s request for comment with the following statement from Martin Scorsese and the Killers of the Flower Moon filmmaking team:
“The Gotham Awards honored the filmmakers and cast with The Historical Icon & Creator tribute, which recognizes significant moments in history and for bringing a story to life in an authentic way on screen. We all wanted to make sure that in the limited time available, the acceptance speech had space to acknowledge our Osage collaborators on-stage and at home, as well as our entire cast and filmmaking team. Apple has been a tremendous partner and there was no censorship. There was an unfortunate miscommunication regarding the final version of the speech. The event was a beautiful moment for our cast and collaborators to be reunited for the first time since the strikes. It was an incredible honor to receive this recognition.
- Martin Scorsese and the filmmaking team”