The King of Comedy (film) character fails to differentiate between his fantasies and reality in much the same way. Scorsese sought to achieve the same with the film so that, in his words, the "fantasy is more real than reality". Rupert Pupkin has been compared to Travis Bickle in "Taxi Driver": both characters have serious issues with reality testing, that is drawing the line between outer objective and inner subjective reality. In her review, entertainment columnist Marilyn Beck approved Johnny Carson's refusal to participate in "The King of Comedy", supposedly because he feared the film could inspire psychopaths like John Hinckley. Beck considered "The King
Midnight Run director and actors. Every last person working on the film did a terrific job. De Niro attributed a lot of the film's eventual success to Charles Grodin. "“The way Chuck Grodin is, it worked," he said. "His character was irritating and Chuck knew how to do that, to work that. I felt like that was a good way to go." Midnight Run Midnight Run is a 1988 American buddy cop action comedy film directed by Martin Brest and starring Robert De Niro and Charles Grodin. Yaphet Kotto, John Ashton, Dennis Farina, Joe Pantoliano and Philip Baker Hall play supporting roles.