Martin Scorsese Encouraged Paul Schrader to Keep Working After Wife’s Alzheimer’s Diagnosis

Martin Scorsese urged Paul Schrader to keep working amid his wife’s health issues. Scorsese encouraged the “Taxi Driver” screenwriter to find a “balance” between aiding his wife, actress Mary Beth Hurt, with her Alzheimer’s diagnosis and continuing writing and directing.

“You have to strike a balance,” Scorsese told Schrader, as the “Master Gardener” director said to Curbed. “You can’t let her condition stop you from working.”

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Schrader originally tried to care for Hurt in their Putnam County home but realized the care “needed to escalate” and relocated to assisted living facility Coterie Hudson Yards. “I started realizing that we’re not going to be able to take care of her anymore and wondering, ‘Where’s a good place?,'” Schrader recalled. “Am I going be left as the lonely old guy at the lake house, walking into walls, drinking? Is that going to be my fate?”

He added, “Would I have moved here if I didn’t have a situation with my wife? No. Will I leave if she dies? No. I like it.” Schrader continued of his neighbors, “They all tend to be kind of interesting because otherwise they couldn’t afford to be here, even if they are a little on the geriatric side. But then so am I.”

Schrader is keeping busy these days: he’s working on a script for “Three Guns at Dawn,” about a trio of brothers (corrupt cop, a serial killer, and a drug dealer) who despise one another. Recently, he approached Antoine Fuqua to direct the film.

Elisabeth Moss has also optioned another script from the writer to direct, plus Schrader is set to helm an adaptation of a Russell Banks novel with Richard Gere starring. Later this year, his “Master Gardener” will be released in theaters after a Venice premiere last year.

Scorsese and Schrader have collaborated for decades, with Scorsese calling Schrader a “beacon of personal expression” in September 2022 during the Venice Film Festival.

“Throughout those 50 years, my respect for him as an artist has really grown with every new picture he has made,” the “Departed” auteur said. “His career is a light, a beacon of personal expression – personal expression above all else, and he’s never stopped growing as an artist. I can’t think of a better example for young, first-time filmmakers to follow. For those of you that get discouraged, just look and adapt and survive the way Paul has. And keep going getting your movies made the way Paul has.”

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