The Deer Hunter Gave Robert De Niro An Offer He Couldn't Refuse
When you are an actor who reaches a certain stature, a lot of consideration goes into which roles you choose to devote yourself to. It's a lot different than when you are trying to break into the business, where you'll accept any role offered to you just because you're happy to work. Bonafide leading stars can choose roles that challenge them, bolster their movie star personas, or that allow them to work with people in the industry that they have wanted to work with.
By the late 1970s, Robert De Niro had become one of those actors. Roundly thought of one of the greatest living actors, he won an Oscar for "The Godfather Part II" and became a staple of New Hollywood thanks to his work with Martin Scorsese. He was gearing up to make his passion project, "Raging Bull," which would win him his second Oscar. This picture required him to both get in prime boxing shape and become fairly overweight in order to play Jake LaMotta, not to mention understand the mind of an abusive, extremely complicated individual. To fully give himself over to the role, he didn't want to focus on any other project for a couple of years.
"Raging Bull" came out in 1980, but he was in a massive film not too long beforehand, one that won Best Picture. "The Deer Hunter" sent De Niro out of the 1970s on a high note. So, what made him sign on to another film during that preparation? You would assume that the role was just so good he couldn't pass it up, right? Not exactly. It was a great role, but what convinced him to shift his focus away from "Raging Bull" for a bit was another one of the great motivating factors for an actor: money.
Million dollar man
Originally, Robert De Niro was not offered the role of Michael Vronsky. It was supposed to go to Roy Scheider. However, the pay determined by his three-picture deal with Universal wasn't going to be adjusted depending on the role. Michael in "The Deer Hunter" is a mammoth part, and Scheider felt his pay wasn't commensurate with the work. This seemed like a roadblock, but then the producers got word De Niro liked the script. Speaking with GQ in 2019, producer Thom Mount remembered thinking that was an upgrade:
"Now when we heard that Robert De Niro had expressed an interest, none of us on the studio management team were unhappy to see Roy decide not to star in the film. It was our judgment that Bob was a far better piece of casting and a far better actor."
Pretty rude to Roy Scheider, but De Niro was certainly the more respected actor at the time. But just because he liked the script doesn't mean he'd break his commitment to "Raging Bull," and producer Michael Deeley wasn't going to spare any expense to make that happen:
"I said that if De Niro agreed to play the role, we would pay him more money than he had ever been paid before. De Niro was, to our minds, key."
De Niro ended up getting paid $1 million for the movie, a first for the actor. Getting a check like that makes asking Martin Scorsese to hold off on "Raging Bull" for a little while longer a little easier. "The Deer Hunter" was a massive success, commercially and awards-wise (though not without controversy), and De Niro still got to make his passion project afterwards. Sadly, director Michael Cimino's next film would bring the New Hollywood crashing down not too long after.