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Robert De Niro's Genius Role In 40-Year-Old Sci-Fi Masterpiece Wasn't The One He Wanted
The name Robert De Niro is synonymous with movies like Taxi Driver and Raging Bull, but it isn’t generally associated with Terry Gilliam’s 1985 sci-fi masterpiece, Brazil. Yet, De Niro does feature in the movie, even if he isn’t playing the part he asked for. Still, the role he actually got has to be seen to be believed.
When the actor’s first-choice part was given away to someone else, Gilliam devised a special cameo for him that involves playing a fugitive plumber abseiling between apartment blocks, fixing people’s heating ducts. This is a very different Robert De Niro from the one we’re used to seeing in Martin Scorsese movies, but it works an absolute comedy treat.
While not generally ranked among Robert De Niro’s best movies, Brazil belongs in the bracket of the greatest movies the actor has ever featured in. If De Niro had got the part he initially wanted, he’d be more visible in the film. Nevertheless his eventual role in Brazil is an ingenious comic turn that showcases his underrated sense of humor.
Robert De Niro Wanted To Play Michael Palin’s Part In Terry Gilliam’s Brazil
He Asked Gilliam If He Could Play Information Retrieval Officer Jack Lint
The part Robert De Niro wanted to play in Brazil was Jack Lint, the mild-mannered interrogator for the Ministry of Information who uses methods of torture to extract what he needs from his “interviewees”. As the darkest role in an extremely dark dystopian satire, it’s easy to see why De Niro was attracted to this role.
Gilliam, however, had other ideas, having already reserved the part for his fellow Monty Python member Michael Palin. In a 1996 interview with David Morgan published on Wide Angle / Closeup, Palin recalled how Gilliam had explained the situation to him:
“De Niro was shown the script and he had a look-through and he said, of all the parts he’d like to do, Jack Lint was the one. So Terry said, “I’m sorry, my friend Mike is going to do that. You have to choose something else!””
Brazil was the first of two all-time great British dark comedy movies that Palin starred in during the space of just three years, along with John Cleese’s A Fish Called Wanda, which was directed by Charles Crichton. Meanwhile, since Robert De Niro was unable to play Jack Lint, Terry Gilliam wrote a part especially for the actor into Brazil’s script.
The Part De Niro Ended Up Playing In Brazil Is Pure Genius
De Niro’s Harry Tuttle Is One Of The Best Things In The Movie
Robert De Niro has starred in an array of brilliant comedy movies over the years, and is widely underrated as a comic actor. However, none of his other humorous performances can compare with the bizarre role he plays in Brazil, which is sheer comedy genius.
The part Terry Gilliam wrote for De Niro is actually the red herring in Brazil’s plot, which leads to the case of mistaken identity in the movie’s opening scene, with devastating consequences for one Archibald Buttle. His character, on the other hand, is Harry Tuttle, an outlawed plumber who covertly fixes residential air conditioning ducts in the dead of night.
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Tuttle is wanted by the violently repressive Ministry of Information for undermining the government’s failing duct repair service, which is undermined by his own freelance operation. If this backstory sounds utterly ludicrous, that’s the whole point, as Terry Gilliam is taking a swing at authoritarian dictatorships by means of satirical caricature. What’s more, De Niro is hilarious in his role.
De Niro Studied Brain Surgery To Play Harry Tuttle
His Studies Weren’t Needed In The End
Famous for immersing himself in his characters, Robert De Niro once cultivated a mohawk haircut and worked as a New York cabbie to prepare for his role as Travis Bickle in Taxi Driver. To play plumber Harry Tuttle in Brazil, De Niro went to a New York hospital and sat in on brain surgery operations (via The Guardian).
Terry Gilliam had apparently told the actor that he wanted his character to treat fixing air conditioning ducts like a brain surgeon would his patient. De Niro took the director at his word, and went to study how to be a brain surgeon.
Unfortunately for him, the hands we see fixing Sam Lowry’s ducts during Harry Tuttle’s main scene in Brazil actually belong to Gilliam. Robert De Niro’s brain surgeon training wasn’t needed in the movie, as it turned out.
Sources: Wide Angle / Closeup; The Guardian
