You got the look for King of Comedy from a tailor called the “Shirtmaker to the Stars.”

Lew Magram. [De Niro, costume designer Richard Bruno, and I] walked by his store, and there was a mannequin in the window. We suddenly realized that the mannequin . . . the mustache, and the hair, the suit, the tie, shirt, shoes, everything—Rupert was looking at us. If you notice, the mustache is slightly shorter on one side. That came from the mannequin. [Laughs]

De Niro had been trying to get you interested in the script since 1976. After you reread Zimmerman’s script, were all three of you on the same page about how Pupkin sees and idolizes Langford, and about how to portray characters? Can you think of an instance where your collaborators surprised you with where they took the character?

Not really, because by that time, I had experienced more of that world that Bob had experienced. By the time I’d made Taxi Driver, New York, New York, The Last Waltz—success, failure, all kinds of things happened. And then I kind of began my career again on Raging Bull. After making Raging Bull, I was at a different point in my life, and was able to absorb The King of Comedy better. To a point. In 1981, when I was shooting [King of Comedy], I realized that I had to wipe the slate clean as a filmmaker and start all over again. I literally started relearning how to make movies. That’s what King of Comedy really helped me to do.

The film’s post-production process was lengthy. During a discussion about *King of Comedy *at the Tribeca Film Festival, you singled out an exchange that took 25 or 30 takes: Pupkin asks Shelly Hack’s character . . .

“Let me speak to Jerry.” I think it took even more than that. Then we realized that we were getting into an obsessive behavior. But we enjoyed the nuance in each take. That made it very difficult to edit the film. I was working on the film shot by shot, scene by scene, character by character. I was working on the levels of hostility and civilized behavior, the mixture of those. Today, I heard an artist on NPR say that he was working some place, and was causing a bit of a disturbance. The interviewer asked, “Did they allow that?” Because he was [obstructing] the exit or something. And the artist said, “Well, I was invited to leave.” In effect, that’s King of Comedy. “They threw you out!” “No, I was invited to leave.” [Laughs]

How hard was it to keep Pupkin from being too pathetic, or grotesque, or easy to dismiss?

We tried out slightly different tones with each take. The other actors responded accordingly, but primarily it was [De Niro]. We were exploring; we didn’t really know. It was a very arduous process.

The King of Comedy ends on a note of uncertainty: Rupert Pupkin succeeded, but we don’t know how. Was that ending exactly what Paul Zimmerman scripted? Has its meaning changed for you since you shot it?

No, not really, except that he becomes successful without being good. He’s good enough. That’s the most unsettling part, that he’s good enough. I didn’t really go further than what Paul Zimmerman had put on the page. And by the way: the monologue that [De Niro] delivers is word-for-word from the script. Paul knew it; he was on another level. I was just making movies.

Could Rupert Pupkin succeed today? Would he be different at all, in a modern context?

I don’t see how. And why should he be? There are so many Ruperts around us. There’s so much dilution, and democratizing of what quality is, for better or for worse.