The King of Comedy (film) without fists". She went on to write that "De Niro in disguise denies his characters a soul. De Niro's 'bravura' acting in "Mean Streets, Taxi Driver" and "New York, New York" collapsed into 'anti-acting' after he started turning himself into repugnant flesh eggies of soulless characters ... Pupkin is a nothing." Scorsese says that "people were confused with "King of Comedy" and saw Bob as some sort of mannequin". Scorsese has called De Niro's role as Rupert Pupkin his favorite of all their collaborations. Sandra Bernhard, who plays Masha in the film, indicated in a 2013 interview that Jack Black
Martin Scorsese and Robert De Niro The film won a BAFTA for Best Original Screenplay, and was nominated for four other BAFTAs, including Best Direction for Scorsese and Best Actor for De Niro. The film was generally praised by critics but did not perform well in the United States. Scorsese suggested the film "...maybe wasn't so well received because it gave off an aura of something that people didn't want to look at or know." De Niro and Scorsese collaborated again in 1990 on "Goodfellas", which also starred Ray Liotta and Joe Pesci. The film follows Henry Hill (Liotta) as he and his friends work their