No, Travis Bickle Is Not the New Face of Uber

As Uber continues to tout driver and rider safety as a number one priority, reports that its new spokesperson will be Robert De Niro playing Travis Bickle from 1976’s Taxi Driver definitely caused some head-scratching. Lucky for us, while Robert De Niro will be involved in a new Uber campaign, he will not be reprising his role as the gun-toting, insomniac, violent-thought-having taxi driver from the titular film.

Despite The Sun reporting otherwise, an Uber spokesperson confirmed to Gizmodo that Robert De Niro will not be invoking Travis Bickle in an ad. The outlet claimed that De Niro would utter Bickle’s famous catchphrase “You talkin’ to me?” in the ad campaign. The Uber spokesperson told Gizmodo that De Niro won’t be referencing phrases from the movie, but that doesn’t mean the campaign won’t be rife with references to Taxi Driver in other ways.

“We are filming with Robert De Niro in London for a new Uber UK campaign, which will launch later in the year,” an Uber spokesperson told Gizmodo over email.

De Niro is the latest in a long line of celebrity spokespeople that the ride-hailing platform has tapped to promote the platform. In 2022, Uber made a huge push to advertise for Uber Eats and Uber One. Jennifer Coolidge, Nicholas Braun, Trevor Noah, and Gwyneth Paltrow were featured in commercials for Uber Eats to show that the service doesn’t just deliver food products. Meanwhile, comedians Zach Cherry, Sarah Silverman, and Tracy Morgan and model Julia Fox starred in ads for Uber One, a membership service hosted by the company that touts no fees on Uber Eats delivery.

Uber will almost certainly find some way to reference De Niro’s 1976 film in its campaign, but Travis Bickle is probably not the first person the company should be associating with—especially as Uber continues to face scrutiny over rider safety and criminal actions by its drivers.

Uber very well may lean into more and more celebrity partnerships as the company reported an operating profit for the first time ever in its Q3 earnings call this year. Might we suggest the guy from Cash Cab?