“All actors my age love him”: the actor Robert De Niro said was in his own orbit
Now that he’s comfortably settled into his groove as an iconic elder statesman of cinema, it’s become abundantly clear there are two distinct sides to Robert De Niro.
On the one hand, there’s the powerhouse veteran who can still deliver the goods when called upon and receive awards season recognition from the industry’s most prestigious ceremonies, as turns in Silver Linings Playbook, Joker, The Irishman, and Killers of the Flower Moon have recently displayed.
On the other, there’s the star who seems quite happy to sign on for anything he thinks looks like it might be a fun time to shoot, which has unfortunately cursed the landscape with such steaming turds as Dirty Grandpa, Killing Season and The War with Grandpa among others.
It’s not like De Niro has ever lost the innate gifts that made him one of the all-time greats in the first place, but he’s often been guilty of slumming it in movies that are beneath his mighty reputation. The same can be said of one of his acting idols, too, especially towards the very latter years of their career.
Despite both of them easily ranking among the finest performers to ever grace the silver screen, not to mention the pair of them winning Academy Awards for playing the exact same character, De Niro only got the chance to work with Marlon Brando once. When he did, the legendary method man was up to his usual tricks.
Collaborating on Frank Oz’s heist caper The Score, Brando would refer to the filmmaker as ‘Miss Piggy’ and often refuse to be directed by him altogether, which forced De Niro to step in and orchestrate any scenes where the elder of the two Vito Corelones had put his foot down and decided he wasn’t willing to play ball with the guy who was literally hired by the studio to shoot the film.
There’s barely an A-lister out there who hasn’t worshipped at the altar of Brando, something De Niro acknowledged when he admitted to NJ that “all actors my age love him”. There’s a reason, though, with the immersive thespian completely reinventing the concept of what cinematic acting could be.
“He was, I think Jack Nicholson said, ‘a force unto himself’. He was in his own orbit,” De Niro continued. “But my other favourites were Montgomery Clift, James Dean. Spencer Tracy, too. Walter Huston. Greta Garbo.”
It’s tantamount to sacrilege if an actor who didn’t break through right around the 1970s and continues working solidly to this day doesn’t name Brando as one of their most pivotal influences, but that’s the status he’s gained for no other reason than being one of the most influential, important, and transformative performers of all time.