What made Francesca Scorsese uncomfortable on set? Daughter of Martin Scorsese reveals limits directing The Saints

Francesca Scorsese has the famous last name, but she still draws her own lines. Martin Scorsese's daughter took the director's chair for his series, and one scene made her hit pause: filming a teen saint's body preserved in glass.

In her recent conversation with Fox Nation, the filmmaker, 26, opened up about directing the episode about Saint Carlo Acutis in Martin Scorsese Presents: The Saints. According to her, she was offered the choice to film the body of the young saint, entombed and displayed in Assisi, Italy.

"It was slightly disturbing because it's a young boy. They put this silicone mask over him, and he looks perfectly preserved. It looks like a young boy sleeping, like one of my friends, and he's in a tracksuit and sneakers."

Francesca Scorsese continued:

"There was a bit of a point of contention on whether or not we were going to film his body. After I left his body, I was like, 'No, we can't. It just feels so wrong.' So we used a very slight amount of stock footage for that as not to disrupt the peace in there."

Saint Carlo Acutis was a devout Catholic teen from Italy who promoted the religion online before his death at 15 from leukemia. He passed away in 2006 and was canonized in 2015.

Francesca Scorsese is a director, writer, and actress. As she started young in the industry, she has appeared in multiple series, most of which are Shorts, such as We Are Who We Are (2020), Fame and Other Four Letter Words (2025), and Money Talks.

With this, Martin Scorsese's daughter is aware of the "nepo baby" moniker, but she acknowledges it.

"I got this obviously because my dad was overseeing everything as the executive producer. I’m not going to deny anything. I'm honored to be given an opportunity like this, and I’m going to do my best."

Francesca Scorsese opens up about her religious upbringing

In the interview, Francesca Scorsese also confessed to growing up in a religious upbringing, adding that her father, Martin Scorsese, would be the one encouraging her about faith.

"I had my communion, I had my confirmation. I would go to the classes to get through all that. I'd go to church. I'd pray every night. My dad would read me the Bible like a bedtime story sometimes."

However, as she grew up, she "drifted away from my beliefs" after witnessing her mother's struggles with Parkinson's disease.

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"I often found myself asking, 'Why does God do bad things to good people, or let bad things happen to good people?' My mom was a big point of struggle for me as I got older and that got a lot worse."

Meanwhile, Francesca Scorsese is slated to helm Adults, a comedy short about her mother's youth, citing it as a "father-daughter story."

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