Robert De Niro has denied reports that he’s reprising his role from Taxi Driver in an upcoming Uber advert.
Last week, reports in The Sun claimed the actor was set to play the role of Travis Bickle from the 1976 film in the advert campaign, where he would say the character’s famous line: “You talkin’ to me?”
De Niro’s representative has since confirmed he will be appearing in an advert for Uber, but said it wouldn’t be connected to his character in Taxi Driver.
“De Niro’s Uber commercial has nothing to do with his Taxi Driver character,” his representative told The Hollywood Reporter.
The advert campaign is currently being filmed in London and is expected to be released later this year.
Prior to De Niro’s denial, Taxi Driver writer Paul Schrader responded to the reports in a post on Facebook. “Ouch,” he wrote. “Why Bob would do this is beyond my reckoning. But I haven’t seen it. If I’m lucky I never will.”
Directed by Martin Scorsese, Taxi Driver is a neo-noir psychological thriller that won the Palme d’Or prize at the 1976 Cannes Film Festival. It also received four Oscar nominations at the time, including Best Picture, Best Actor for De Niro and Best Supporting Actress for Jodie Foster.
De Niro has teamed up with Scorsese once again for upcoming film Killers Of The Flower Moon, where he stars alongside Leonardo DiCaprio.
In a five-star review, NME described it as a “film that will linger in the minds of its audience for a long time”.