How Robert De Niro Influenced Peter Sellers' Preparation For Being There
By the time Peter Sellers played Chance the gardener in Hal Ashby's satirical "Being There" in 1979, he had already made an incredible name for himself. Between being the face of the "Pink Panther" franchise, starring in "Dr. Strangelove," and even stepping into the shoes of James Bond — though admittedly in the 1967 parody movie "Casino Royale," not in any of the mainline entries — there was no doubt that Sellers could take on just about any role.
Still, with "Being There," the actor was faced with a challenge. As Sellers told Don Lane in 1980, Chance was "the most difficult role [he had] ever played," largely due to the fact that the character was hard to bring to life convincingly. A careful balancing act was required. Within the film, a series of misunderstandings caused Chance — a live-in gardener who had never left the property on which he worked — to captivate politicians with his agricultural knowledge, which they mistook as valuable political advice. Since the premise was relatively far-fetched, Sellers would have to come across as simultaneously naive yet wise for the film to have a chance at success.
Of course, given Sellers' repertoire, there was little doubt that he could pull off the job. But in the process of fleshing out the character, he wasn't afraid to take a cue from another great actor: Robert De Niro.
Creating a convincing character
Peter Sellers had a relatively unique, old-school way of finding his characters' essence — in fact, Joseph Gordon-Levitt's technique is similar to his. As Sellers would tell Playboy in 1962 (via Far Out):
"I find out how the character sounds. It's through the way he speaks that I find out the rest about him. [...] After the voice comes the looks of the man. I do a lot of drawings of the character I play. [...] After that I establish how the character walks. [...] And then, suddenly, something strange happens. The person takes over. The man you play begins to exist."
Sellers' long, varied career is a testament to his acting method, but the process of finding a character occasionally raised some red flags. When it came time to discover Chance, Sellers noticed a big discrepancy between the character's physique and his own, he told Don Lane. Since Chance worked a "sedentary" job, he was relatively heavyset. In contrast, Sellers was quite thin.
Enter Robert De Niro. The actor had recently put on around 60 pounds for "Raging Bull," which inspired Sellers to gain weight for "Being There." The comedian spoke about the influence while chatting with Lane:
"I noticed that Robert De Niro just put [60] pounds on for a movie, with the supervision of a doctor, and I agree with that, because padding never looks right. I mean, you pad your body out and then your face doesn't look right."
Chance's weight was a relatively minor trait and Sellers could've simply made the character thinner if he so desired. However, the actor's willingness to alter his body in order to do Chance justice displays the level of commitment to his art.