Billy Crystal has revealed that he was once taught by Martin Scorsese while he was studying film at New York University, an experience he called “scary”.
Scorsese, 82, is now regarded as one of the greatest directors of all time, responsible for classics such as Taxi Driver, Raging Bull and Goodfellas, as well as modern masterpieces including The Wolf of Wall Street and Killers of the Flower Moon.
Meanwhile, Crystal, 76, found fame as an actor, mostly notably for his roles in films such as When Harry Met Sally, Monsters Inc, Analyze This and The Princess Bride.
Despite there being a relatively small age gap between the pair, Crystal found himself being taught by Scorsese when he was a film student in the late 1960s.
Speaking on Today’s Sunday Sitdown with Willie Geist podcast, Crystal said: “I was in film school here [at NYU], and Martin Scorsese was my film production professor. He was a graduate student at the time, just doing his first movie, called Who’s That Knocking at My Door. And it was 1968, 1969, 1970.”
“And [he] had a big beard and granny glasses and hair down to his shoulders. He looked like everybody,” Crystal added.
“He’d stand behind you while you were editing your film, and he would be very scary, because he would look and he was so intense and he would speak very quickly – even then – he spoke quicker then because he was, you know, 50 years younger.”
It probably won’t shock anybody to learn that Scorsese was as meticulous as a teacher as he is a director and would call out errors in student’s work, often to their amazement.
Crystal explains: “He’d go, ‘Why’d you shoot it that way? Use a wide shot! Howard Hawks always used a wide shot.’ I said, ‘I’m 19 — I don’t know who Howard Hawks is!’”
Crystal admits that he still knows Scorsese, who has “the same energy” when he sees him now as he did all those years ago.
Elsewhere, Scorsese has recommended everyone watch one of the year’s most acclaimed psychological horror movies, I Saw the TV Glow, saying that he liked the film “a great deal”.
Speaking to the Associated Press, he said: “There was one film I liked a great deal I saw two weeks ago called I Saw the TV Glow.”
Expanding on his thoughts on the film, the Mean Streets director said: “It really was emotionally and psychologically powerful and very moving. It builds on you, in a way.”
