Congratulations are in order for Martin Scorsese, who, at 82, has scored his first acting Emmy nomination.
The Oscar-winning director behind “Goodfellas,” and “Taxi Driver” has been recognized not for a cinematic opus, but for his gloriously unhinged guest spot in Apple TV+’s Hollywood satire “The Studio,” a comedy from Evan Goldberg and Seth Rogen.
The series, which imagines a flailing film studio under new idiotic leadership, features a scene where Scorsese shows up — playing himself — to pitch a completely deranged idea to Rogen’s hapless exec, Matt Remick. The pitch? A mega-budget epic on Jonestown.
Jim Jones, the United States Senate, America. It’s sprawling, it’s big, it’s fun, it’s fcked up. Granted, it’s fcked up. But I see it as a meditation on cults, hero worship, mass murder, suicide, everything. It’s life.
Goldberg says they wrote the part on a whim, never actually expecting Marty to say yes.
Scorsese isn’t new to the Emmys — he’s already a three-time winner for nonfiction projects like “George Harrison: Living in the Material World” and “Boardwalk Empire,” but this marks the first time the Television Academy has acknowledged his acting.
Scorsese’s acting career, while sporadic, has had a few standout moments. His most iconic turn might still be as the jittery passenger in “Taxi Driver” where he delivers a dark, obsessive monologue that chills to this day. There’s also his cameos in Akira Kurosawa’s “Dreams,” and Larry David’s “Curb Your Enthusiasm.”