Lester Fabian Brathwaite is a staff writer at Entertainment Weekly, where he covers breaking news, all things Real Housewives, and a rich cornucopia of popular culture. Formerly a senior editor at Out magazine, his work has appeared on NewNowNext, Queerty, Rolling Stone, and The New Yorker. He was also the first author signed to Phoebe Robinson's Tiny Reparations imprint. He met Oprah once.
Billy Crystal and Martin Scorsese have no doubt shared many a room in their decades in show business, but it all started out at New York University.
Crystal, a young film student, had Scorsese, a hyperactive grad student, as one of his professors, and in a recent interview, the future When Harry Met Sally star and beloved Oscar host recalls how "scary" the future Oscar winner was even back then.
"I was in film school here [at NYU], and Martin Scorsese was my film production professor," Crystal said on Today's Sunday Sitdown with Willie Geist podcast. "He was a graduate student at the time, just doing his first movie, called Who's That Knocking at My Door. And it was 1968, 1969, 1970."
Scorsese's feature film debut, and also the acting debut of its star Harvey Keitel, Who's That Knocking at My Door premiered at the 1967 Chicago Film Festival, was released to theaters the following year, and then re-issued in 1970.
Only six years older than Crystal, the comedian still found Scorsese intimidating.
"And [he] had a big beard and granny glasses and hair down to his shoulders. He looked like everybody," Crystal joked. "He'd stand behind you while you were editing your film, and he would be very scary, because he would look and he was so intense and he would speak very quickly -- even then -- he spoke quicker then because he was, you know, 50 years younger."
Though he would become perhaps the greatest filmmaker of his generation, Marty Scorsese sounded like a pretty terrible film teacher, the way Crystal describes him.
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"And he'd go, 'Why'd you shoot it that way? Use a wide shot! Howard Hawks always used a wide shot.' I said, 'I'm 19 -- I don't know who Howard Hawks is!'" the When Harry Met Sally star said, referring to the legendary director of such classics as Bringing Up Baby, His Girl Friday, and Gentlemen Prefer Blondes.
A half-century later, Crystal says Scorsese still feels like the exact same person with "the same energy" when he sees him.
While Scorsese was his professor, Oliver Stone and Christopher Guest were among Crystal's classmates. Crystal graduated from NYU in 1970 with his BFA and though he made a name for himself primarily as an actor, he did eventually make use of that Scorsese education; Crystal made his feature directorial debut with 1992's Mr. Saturday Night, which he adapted to the stage for a 2022 Broadway musical. Crystal would go on to direct three more films: 1995's Forget Paris, the 2001 TV movie 61*, and most recently 2021's Here Today.