At twenty-six, he got into movies by answering the newspaper ad of an N.Y.U. student director, Martin Scorsese. Keitel was cast in Scorsese's thesis film, and then in Mean Streets, Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore, and Taxi Driver. In the late seventies, Keitel's career suffered a sharp blow when he lost the lead in Apocalypse Now to Martin Sheen. Over time, Keitel became typecast as an intense, back-alley thug (Wise Guys and Bad Lieutenant ), stereotype that proved impossible to transcend with his biblical role in Scorsese's The Last Temptation of Christ. (An apostle with a Brooklyn accent? Not everyone could see it.) But he finally managed to drop the thug persona (not to mention his pants), in The Piano, Jane Campion's award-winning film. He put in a strong performance in Reservoir Dogs, for a then unknown Quentin Tarantino, and his involvement in Pulp Fiction helped get that hit movie made. He and Tarantino reunited once again, in 1995, for a vampire flick From Dusk Till Dawn. He recently starred in City of Industry with Timothy Hutton. And is filming a movie with Sylvestor Stallone.
