Harvey Keitel Threw "Bad Lieutenant" in the Trash Before One of His Best Performances

Abel Ferrara recalls how Christopher Walken's departure at the last moment nearly derailed his 1992 classic, which is now streaming on the Criterion Channel.

Three weeks before filming began on Bad Lieutenant, Abel Ferrara's 1992 dark crime masterpiece, the director ran into trouble.

His leading man, Christopher Walken, had decided he couldn't play the bad lieutenant. And Ferrara had already spent his salary.

"I had two kids at the time. I had fucking houses. I had drug addictions. I had fucking chicks on the side," Ferrara tells The Hollywood Reporter. "I spent it on every damn thing you could spend it on."

Andrew Scott on 'Elsinore' and 'Out Gay Actor' in 2026: 'I was able to thrive in this situation and it's really great'

Penelope Cruz on Singing and Dancing in 'La Bola Negra', Reuniting with Bardem in 'Bunker' and Laughing 'Em in 'The Invitation'

Speaking from Rome for an episode of The Hollywood Reporter's Happening in Hollywood podcast, Ferrara reflected on the shaky start of his 1992 film, which eventually starred Harvey Keitel as a corrupt New York detective who careens through drugs, gambling and mental despair.

It is currently being broadcast as part of the retrospective program "Directed by Abel Ferrara" on the Criterion channel.

Walken had previously starred in Ferrara, King of New York (1990), playing a drug lord with ambitions to redistribute his wealth.

Ferrara still remembers their first meeting, when he and his writer were so worried about hosting the Oscar winner that they rehearsed everything. What drinks to serve and whether to bring the kids downstairs. Walken came, sat down and never took off his coat.

"Then he stood up and said, 'I know exactly what you guys want to do and I can give it to you,'" Ferrara recalled.

By Lt. Bad, the relationship was established. Ferrara was developing the film for Walken, and the two spent a week at Chateau Marmont rehearsing and shaping the material. Back in New York, preparations were underway.

It took two years to reach this point. Potential financiers took issue with this premise, particularly the idea that the police officer himself was dealing crack. Even those who understood did not open their wallets.

"I almost gave it up," Ferrara says. "I told Ed, 'Let's just screw this up.' I can't take it anymore."

Ed was producer Edward R. Pressman, who was sitting with Walken and Ferrara at the Chateau on Saturday morning when the actor walked away from the project as easily as he had committed to the King of New York.

"He just tells the producer, 'I know what Abel wants here.' Now I really know what he wants and I can't give it to him. I can't do this movie." Walken then got up and left.

Ferrara recalls mentally encountering a series of increasingly frustrating responses. Pressman sat there for about two minutes and suggested one of his own: "Should I go after him?"

The script later reached Keitel, whom Ferrara admired but had never met. That introduction didn't go very well either. "He read the first three pages and threw it in the damn trash, man," Ferrara says.

The document was roughly 30 pages long, hardly a typical screenplay. It took the intervention of actor Victor Argo, Keitel's close friend and Ferrara's regular, to get another look at it.

Ferrara remembers Argo telling him, "No, dude, take that thing out of that garbage."

What finally convinced Keitel was a long piece written by Ferrara's co-star Zoë Lund, who also plays the woman with whom the lieutenant plays the main character. This episode was about the confession of a nun who is being investigated by a detective about rape. Much of it did not make it into the finished film.

Keitel's arrival meant abandoning what Ferrara and Walken had done together.

"The whole week I was training with Walken, all that crap went out the window," he says.

The result became one of Keitel's defining performances, and the film remains a frequent topic of discussion for its director.

"I have made 35 films," says Ferrara. "But with Bad Lieutenant, everyone thinks, 'That's the only movie I've ever made,' or 'King of New York.'

Ferrara's full interview will be broadcast on season 10 of The Hollywood Reporter's It Happened in Hollywood podcast.