Robert De Niro: “You Don't Leave This Business, It Leaves You”

Displaying the versatility that has led him to appear in over 100 movies, Robert De Niro talks Scorsese, reflects on five decades of cinematic brilliance, and surmises the vagaries of social media

ROBERT DE NIRO’S TENURE at the top table of the movie world encompasses a greater breadth than almost any of his contemporaries. On-screen, he is unquestionably Vito Corleone, and undeniably Travis Bickle. He is Jimmy the Gent, or Jake LaMotta, or any number of the acclaimed characters he has inhabited like a second skin. And yet, for every moody gangster there is a jocular makeweight ensuring a slick equilibrium of dramatic turns.

Films like Midnight Run, Analyse That, and Meet the Fockers showed that his formidable screen persona can also revel in a comic setting. We laugh simply because we are relieved his characters have a lighter side, even though that sense of menace is always present.

And yet, away from the camera, the Manhattan-born movie icon is known to shun the media and eschew tabloid interest in his private life. To those who grew up watching the actor deliver some of his greatest performances, this disinterest in the press and the paparazzi matters not one bit.

“I’m an actor,” he begins.

“I pretend, in almost everything I do professionally. When I go home I can relax and be myself, and I think everyone wants to be themselves without interruptions. I’m flattered that people are interested in me, but really, it’s not necessary,” he laughs.

Ultimately, there are few actors in Hollywood so utterly dedicated to their craft. It is a devotion and unending drive to reinvent that makes Robert De Niro—or Bobby to his closest friends—one of our enduring acting greats.

But even now in his seventies, with a full five decades of cinematic success to his name, he remains wary of the fleeting nature of fame and fortune.