Check out these rare on-set pho­tos from The Deer Hunter

Robert De Niro has been my cin­e­mat­ic idol for as long as I can remem­ber – so to meet and inter­view him and for him to open his archives has been a dream come true; and then to be told to call him Bob is just surreal.

With the inclu­sion of Meryl Streep, Chris Walken, Vil­mos Zsig­mond – heroes of mine – I knew that I had been hand­ed a gold­en baton and it was just a case of not drop­ping it.

Here I was work­ing with Bob’s amaz­ing archives, being passed images and won­der­ful pre-pro­duc­tion mate­r­i­al from exec­u­tive pro­duc­ers Mar­i­on Rosen­berg and Joann Carel­li and many more from the cast and crew, which all opened up the sto­ry of the mak­ing of the film to me.

“The Deer Hunter fea­tures one of the great casts: the late great John Caza­le, Meryl Streep, Chris Walken, John Sav­age… and along­side direc­tor Michael Cimi­no, in the audi­tions, sat Robert De Niro; he was fun­da­men­tal in cast­ing the film. It was one the most sur­pris­ing facts that I learnt dur­ing the writ­ing of this book. Meryl, Chris, John, George Dzundza all spoke of meet­ing Bob dur­ing their audi­tions.” – Jay Glennie

“It was nor­mal. It felt right to be involved and offer Mike [Cimi­no] any sup­port I could. It hap­pens seam­less­ly when you work with a col­lab­o­ra­tive direc­tor.” – Robert De Niro

“No mat­ter how seri­ous you take your craft you have to find time to have fun while mak­ing a film and Mike [Cimi­no] allowed has that oppor­tu­ni­ty on The Deer Hunter. I look back fond­ly at those days of film­ing. We were open to any pos­si­bil­i­ties that might occur.” – Robert De Niro

“The guys had built up a great chem­istry. Third from the left is Chuck Aspe­gren. Bob and Michael Cimi­no met Chuck while on a scout­ing trip. Chuck was the fore­man at a steel mill. One night enjoy­ing a beer Bob sug­gest­ed to Cimi­no that they offer Chuck the role of Axel.” – Jay Glennie

“When you meet char­ac­ters like this, peo­ple you meet on loca­tion, you got­ta use them. I am not being dis­parag­ing to actors but some­times you need to that flavour and authen­tic­i­ty some­body like Chuck brought to the movie. They have spent their whole life exist­ing this way and it is hard to repli­cate that rich­ness. No, Chuck was in.” – Robert De Niro

“Here are John Sav­age, Michael Cimi­no and Robert De Niro cel­e­brat­ing suc­cess­ful­ly plung­ing into rag­ing Riv­er Kwai after mak­ing their escape. Michael Cimi­no always said that The Deer Hunter was nev­er intend­ed to be about the Viet­nam War, indeed Chris Walken told me that he could nev­er recall the war being mentioned.

“Rather it was Cimino’s inten­tion to show the effect the war had had on a com­mu­ni­ty and the way lives had been affect­ed and dam­aged by the bru­tal­i­ty of war. For Cimi­no the play­ing of Russ­ian roulette was a metaphor of how gov­ern­ments treat­ed ser­vice­man and women.” – Jay Glennie

“I love this pic­ture. It is a side of Bob that you do not often see. The image of the intro­vert­ed artist is the one that has been con­stant­ly sold but the Bob his co-stars and the crew spoke of was a man ded­i­cat­ed to his craft and open and fun. And some forty years lat­er the Bob that has so gra­cious­ly helped me is very far removed from the moody mono­syl­lab­ic, noth­ing of the sort, the guy is a leg­end!” – Jay Glennie

“This shot is from when the guys are play­ing pool on the morn­ing of Steven’s wed­ding; it’s a won­der­ful scene. It was bought to life fur­ther for me when I found in Bob’s archives a note chore­o­graph­ing every move­ment he made with his cue keep­ing in time to the Frankie Val­li song ​‘Can’t Take My Eyes Off You’ as the guys danced, drank and played pool. This is his ded­i­ca­tion to his craft, it all looks spon­ta­neous but he spent hours per­fect­ing his por­tray­al.” – Jay Glennie

“When Meryl Streep agreed to con­tribute to ​‘One Shot’ I was thrilled, and she was every­thing I hoped she would be – fun and gra­cious. She told me that The Deer Hunter held so many spe­cial mem­o­ries for her, one of which was a life­long friend­ship with Bob that she holds very, very dear. Their on-screen chem­istry was beau­ti­ful.” – Jay Glennie

‘One Shot: The Mak­ing of The Deer Hunter’ is avail­able to buy now via coat​tail​-pub​li​ca​tions​.com