Were you talkin’ to him? The Taxi and Limousine Commission wants to know.
The agency tweeted a photo of the real hack license Robert De Niro had when he prepped for his iconic role as Travis Bickle in “Taxi Driver.”
The license, which expired on May 31, 1976, bears a photo of a floppy-haired De Niro, who was 32 at the time. Now the TLC is asking for stories from anyone who remembers riding in the back seat of De Niro’s taxi in 1976. In the classic Martin Scorsese film, De Niro, now 70, played a discharged US Marine battling his inner demons who starts driving a cab to deal with his insomnia.
“Even 38 years later, the images of Robert De Niro as Travis Bickle in ‘Taxi Driver’ are still indelibly etched in people’s minds,” TLC Chair Meera Joshi told The Post’s Rebecca Harshbarger. “It’s very much to Mr. De Niro’s credit that he spent weeks behind the wheel of a real cab to get into character, and as we suggested in our recent tweet, if someone remembers hailing and riding with him, we hope they will share that experience with us.”
De Niro reportedly worked 12-hour days as a cabby for a month to prepare for the role, just two years after he played young Vito Corleone in “The Godfather Part II,” for which he won the Best Supporting Actor Oscar.