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\n\tDocumentary filmmaker Rebecca Miller was acquainted with the subject of her latest, Apple TV\u2019s five-part Mr. Scorsese<\/em>, through her husband Daniel Day-Lewis, one of legendary director Martin Scorsese\u2019s cinematic muses. But when it came to getting the filmmaker to commit to opening up about his life and career, it required a little bit of an audition process on her part \u2014 and one quirk of fate that freed up Scorsese\u2019s schedule: the Covid pandemic.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cI cold-called his producing partner in documentaries, Margaret Bodde, and I said: \u2018Look, this is crazy \u2014 I know somebody must be making a big movie about Marty, but if they\u2019re not, I\u2019d be really interested,\u2019\u201d Miller revealed during the series\u2019 Deadline Contenders Television: Documentary panel.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cShe asked him, and he said for me to write a letter,\u201d Miller continued. \u201cSo I wrote him a letter and told him sort of how I would approach it. And then he said, \u2018Well, let her come to a meeting. Come meet me.\u2019 So I came and we met, and by the end of it, he was saying, \u2018Well, we could shoot here, we should do \u2013\u201d And I was like, \u201cWait, are we doing \u2026 is this something that\u2019s happening?<\/em>\u201d And then I called everybody, I said, \u2018I think we\u2019re making the movie \u2013 at least, wait a minute, hang on a second\u2014\u2019 But it really did happen.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tRELATED: Martin Scorsese Pursued Priesthood As A Teen But Was Kicked Out Of Seminary: \u201cI Behaved Badly\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n \n\tJust two days later, Covid struck and imperiled the project, she revealed. \u201cBut Marty traveled 2\u00bd hours up to my house so that he could sit on the porch \u2013 everything outside, of course,\u201d Miller said. \u201cBut in a weird way, what happened was he suddenly had time. Marty never <\/em>has any time, but suddenly he had nothing but time because he couldn\u2019t make any films. He was stuck in his little study, and he was so happy. And also I think there was something about the aura of death at that time that made everyone really think about their lives \u2026 and so in a way, this is all part of that, that feeling of him really looking back.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tMiller explained. \u201cHe particularly wanted to kind of open himself in a new way for this. He would often say \u2018Oh, I want to say this in a new way.\u2019 He wanted to meet me really right where I was. Our first interview \u2026 lasted like four hours. And by the end of it, he was only about 12. And he was basically thinking, \u2018Uh-oh, this is going to be a longer process than I thought.\u2019 And I too, like I didn\u2019t really know how honest and open he would be. And he was just so open and honest. So I think he gave me a great gift.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tMiller said she gained new insight into Scorsese\u2019s relationship with her husband and other actors including Robert De Niro, Leonardo DiCaprio and Joe Pesci that he\u2019s worked with repeatedly over the decades.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cHe calls them his \u2018key collaborators,\u2019\u201d she said. \u201cAnd you really do understand that even though yes, he loves the complex shots, he\u2019s invented a lot of new ways of filmmaking, but central to all of that is the truth he gets from the actors and also the trust he puts in them. And that\u2019s not just for the male actors, it\u2019s also for the female actors. And by the way, he\u2019s probably got more female Academy Award nominations than I think any other director. A lot of the women that come up to that with him just do the performance of their career. And he fosters a kind of deep honesty and trust with the actors and lets them feel like they can even further than anyone expected, that they can be safe and still experiment.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tCollaboration, she believes, has been central to Scorsese\u2019s ability to transcend his Hollywood outsider persona and periods of artistic struggle and battling personal demons. \u201cI think one of the things that I really wanted to highlight in the film was, his genius was someone who really was born with, but without these angels that he encounters in his life, like Thelma [Schoonmaker, his longtime editor], who amazingly was just in his class at NYU, and there she was. And she becomes later this person who goes on his whole life to be a partner, or encountering De Niro, or encountering even Rick Yorn, his manager now, who enabled him to kind of make a lot of these films at such a high level in terms of budget. And so he had a lot of luck encountering these wonderful people.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tRELATED: Thelma Schoonmaker Toasts Late Husband Michael Powell & Questions The Use Of Dubbing On International Releases During Edinburgh Q&A: \u201cHow Do You Replace Robert De Niro\u2019s Voice?\u201d\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n \n\tShe revealed: \u201cI asked a lot of people that why, when there were many other wonderful artists of that period, they haven\u2019t necessarily had that same luck, the ability to continue on this level. I mean, some of it has to do with the magnitude of his talent, of course. Some that has to do with his immense power of persuasion and the sense that you just want to help him do whatever it is that he needs to do. And that is something that\u2019s a gift of his personality.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cHe has an immense appetite and energy and love, deep, deep love for cinema,\u201d she added. \u201cAs Leonardo DiCaprio says, he would do it for free. It is utterly in his blood and his bones.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n