Martin Scorsese really hated working on The Departed

Martin Scorsese in Hugo [Image via Paramount]
Martin Scorsese in Hugo [Image via Paramount]

It says a lot about Martin Scorsese’s recent films that they have somehow managed to rival his esteemed work on ‘Mean Streets’, ‘Taxi Driver’, ‘Raging Bull’, and ‘Goodfellas’.

The reviews for his latest opus ‘Silence’ suggest that it matches the quality of the equally lauded ‘The Wolf Of Wall Street’, ‘Hugo’, and ‘The Departed’, even though Martin Scorsese has now admitted that he actually despised working on the latter.

The legendary director made this admission to The Sunday Times, via The Hamilton Spectator, insisting that he now personally refers to the 2006 gangster epic as, “Moral Ground Zero.” Scorsese explained, “All the characters killed at the end, basically everyone, and there was no place to go, after that.”

Leonardo DiCaprio and Jack Nicholson in The Departed [Image via Warner Bros]
Leonardo DiCaprio and Jack Nicholson in The Departed [Image via Warner Bros]

In fact, Marty pointed out that he was so downtrodden after working on ‘The Departed’, which starred Jack Nicholson, Leonardo DiCaprio and Matt Damon, that he couldn’t bring himself to do press for the film.

Scorsese added, “I was tired of it. I felt it was maddening. I mean, I like the picture, but the process of making it, particularly in the post-production, was highly unpleasant. I said, I don’t care how much I’m being paid, it’ll kill me. I’ll die. Very simply.”

However, there was a silver lining to all the toil that Martin Scorsese went through to make ‘The Departed’, as his work on the film finally saw him claim the Best Director Academy Award that he’d long deserved. So, every cloud and all that.

‘Silence’ will be released into UK cinemas on January 1, 2017.


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