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Director Rebecca Miller looks back on spending time on Martin Scorsese’s Gangs of New York set, years before she profiled the filmmaker in her new documentary Mr. Scorsese
“His attitude was not somebody who was complacent at all,” Miller says of the director, who had already been making movies for more than 25 years before Gangs of New York‘s troubled production
Mr. Scorsese is streaming on Apple TV Oct. 17
One of Rebecca Miller‘s first interactions with the subject of her new documentary, Martin Scorsese, came on the set of one of his most tumultuous movie productions.
When filmmaker Miller, 63, spoke with PEOPLE recently about her new five-part Apple TV documentary series Mr. Scorsese, she said that while she does not remember exactly when she met the legendary filmmaker, 82, she does recall watching him grapple with the chaos of a major blockbuster Hollywood film on the set of 2002’s Gangs of New York.
“I was very rarely on set, but I was there this one day,” Miller tells PEOPLE. (The director has been married to Daniel Day-Lewis, who starred in Gangs of New York, since 1996, and they share two sons.) “They were shooting a big battle scene. I remember that was the first time I feel like I really met Marty because he was was so openly anxious about how the scene was gonna go and how he was shooting it, and if it was the right way.”
“And I was just thinking, ‘This is Martin Scorsese, and he is still so alive and so young,’ ” she adds. “His attitude was not somebody who was complacent at all. It was just vivid, and I remember that very well.”
Apple TV+
Martin Scorsese on the set of ‘Gangs of New York’
In Mr. Scorsese‘s fifth episode, Scorsese himself reflects on the difficulties of making Gangs of New York. Most notably, the since-disgraced film producer Harvey Weinstein, whose company Miramax distributed the movie, tried to wield significantly more control over the film’s budget and runtime than Scorsese was comfortable with giving him.
“I definitely remember the friction and tension hearing about that with Weinstein, definitely,” Miller says, when asked what she recalls from spending time on the Gangs of New York set. “[I remember Martin] trying to get what he needed and just that it was just all on such a titanic scale.”
“It was like what happens on every film to a degree, maybe, but everybody was a giant, and so it was like a bunch of giants with giant money, so everything was immense,” Miller adds. “It was memorable and the greatness of the film, I think, is in part because of that.”
Miller’s new documentary on Scorsese’s life and career captures everything from his childhood in New York City’s Lower Manhattan — where Gangs of New York takes place in the mid 1800s — to his various collaborations (six and counting) with Leonardo DiCaprio, which began with Gangs. It’s also a reflection of her own friendship with Scorsese, who Miller says gave her advice and notes beginning with her 2002 movie Personal Velocity and continued to follow her career as a filmmaker.
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Miramax Cameron Diaz and Daniel Day-Lewis in 2002’s ‘Gangs of New York’
“He was aware of my work, and later I found out he was reading my novels,” Miller says. “When it came time to think about who I would like my next subject of a documentary to be, I was talking to my producing partner and he was saying, ‘Who would you want to explore for that?’ And the first person that came to mind was Martin Scorsese.”
Mr. Scorsese begins streaming on Apple TV Oct. 17.
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