Terry Gross

And De Niro sees this.

And so he wants to buy some time with you to save you.

He kind of has a savior complex.

so here's a scene where you know he has tried to talk with you and rescue you take him away from the pimp but you don't want to be rescued so he ends up taking you to a diner he's trying to convince you to go back home be with your parents and live just live a better life and um you speak first why do you want me to go back to my parents i mean they hate me why do you think i split in the first place

I think Paul Schrader doesn't ever get quite enough credit for writing this.

I mean, people who really know movies think he's made terrific movies, but Scorsese did a brilliant job directing it, but Paul Schrader did a brilliant job writing it.

You know, God's Lonely Man and all of Travis's monologues.

Did you get to talk to Schrader about the screenplay?

That's funny because it's like you can play a prostitute who's 12 years old in the movie, but don't talk to the person who wrote this.

How did your mother feel about playing a 12-year-old sex worker?

And how did you feel about it?

How much did you understand what that meant?

And also the film has some pretty explicit violence.

This was before you were 12?

Did adults in the ladies' room ever look at you and say,

What are you doing here?

But you've also said that it was hard for you to express emotion unless you were acting.

You've said De Niro stayed in character during the whole shoot and before it, too.

So what he would do is take you to a diner and not necessarily say anything.

Was that fun for you doing those improvs?