Martin Scorsese Reveals Why He Came Close to Quitting Hollywood After “Gangs of New York”

"It was at times extremely difficult," Martin Scorsese said of working with Miramax to produce his movies in the early 2000s

Martin Scorsese had a difficult time completing two his most revered movies.

As the legendary director, 80, spoke with GQ recently for a cover story ahead of the release of his latest epic Killers of the Flower Moon, the filmmaker recalled feeling frustrated by the constraints that former producer Harvey Weinstein placed upon him when he made 2002's Gangs of New York with Weinstein's former company, Miramax.

“I realized that I couldn’t work if I had to make films that way ever again,” Scorsese told the outlet. The director recalled how Weinstein, 71, tried to exert more control over the movie's budget and runtime than Scorsese felt comfortable with.

“If that was the only way that I was able to be allowed to make films, then I’d have to stop," he said. "Because the results weren’t satisfying. It was at times extremely difficult, and I wouldn’t survive it. I’d be dead. And so I decided it was over, really.”

Scorsese also said his next movie, 2004's The Aviator, faced the same issues because Weinstein's Miramax co-distributed the film alongside Warner Bros. Pictures.

Related: Leonardo DiCaprio Calls Out Hollywood's 'Checkered Past' with Depiction of Native American People

“And I was against that; there was a meeting, and I was forced into that position,” Scorsese recalled of having to work with Weinstein again. “I’d already been, uh, made pregnant, as they said. And there’s no way you’re getting out of it."

"But the shoot went well, the editing went well until the last couple of weeks of editing. And they came in and did some things that I felt were extremely mean," he added. According to GQ, both Miramax and Warner Bros. stopped funding the movie toward the end of its production, leading Scorsese to use $500,000 of his own money to finish the film.

Never miss a story — sign up for PEOPLE's free daily newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from juicy celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.

Related: Martin Scorsese Teases Upcoming Movie About Jesus After Meeting with Pope Francis: Report

In Killers of the Flower Moon, Scorsese reunites with DiCaprio for their sixth project together and marks his 11th film with DiCaprio's costar, Robert De Niro. DiCaprio plays a man named Ernest Burkhart, who moves to Oklahoma in the 1920s and marries local Osage Nation woman Molly Kyle (Lily Gladstone) amid a series of murders against the area's indigenous population.

The film is based on David Grann's 2017 bestseller Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI.

Killers of the Flower Moon releases in theaters Oct. 20 and will later stream on Apple TV+.

For more People news, make sure to sign up for our newsletter!

Read the original article on People.