De Niro Quotes

You know, you have Scorsese who worked with De Niro and - or DiCaprio. You have William Wyler who worked with Bette Davis. You have George Cukor who worked with Katharine Hepburn. I just - people get to be friends and then there's a - that's a - you can take risks together and each time out you take a different risk.

Working with [Robert] De Niro taught me a lot about being an actor's director.

If De Niro wants to spend the twilight of his career as the McDonald's of master thespians, we can't stop him.

I learned a lot from Clint [Eastwood], who's an extremely economic director. I learned a lot from Michael Winterbottom, who really gave a lot of trust in the actors and allowed them to live in the space instead of trying to manipulate and make it too set and too staged. Working with [Robert] De Niro taught me a lot of being an actors' director and what that is. I've learned a lot from pretty much everybody. Hopefully I've picked up something from everybody I've worked with.

In fact, when they wake up in the morning, they're Jack Nicholson or Robert De Niro or Josh Brolin. And it's built-in, but they think it's all this other stuff. But it's not. They'd be great if they didn't think about their part or if they did think about it.

Robert De Niro taught me how to listen, and how to be part of the conversation. It's not just about reading your lines and saying what's in the script; you have to understand your character, along with the other characters so that you can always respond.

I learned one thing from De Niro: He taught me to listen. Nobody says anything strictly from the script. It's improvised. It was the best piece of advice I have ever gotten in my life. It has helped me through the past thirty years.

I want you to know how I feel about my Italian heritage, so I'd like to say a few words in Italian: Verdi, Pavarotti, DiMaggio, Valentino, De Niro, Giuliani. . .

De Niro was a hero of mine. And Sean Penn. But I've realized I can't operate at that level of intensity. That's okay for movies. On TV, when you live with horror day in and day out, you have to protect yourself.

When I was growing up and somebody like Robert De Niro had a movie come out, it was a cultural event. Because he had such a confidence and a single mission that was so intimate.

If you love acting and you've ever experienced theater, then you know that in a movie it's almost impossible to live out that experience, unless you're a Pacino or a De Niro or somebody who gets to pick their parts.

There are people who do De Niro and Walken impersonations.

It's interesting to help someone find their vocabulary. There would not have been a De Niro without a Scorsese.

I think there's a lot of mythos about what's required in acting. The way that actors talk about acting is generally quite punishing, and I think actors want to put forward the idea that they do all of this work because, you know, it's a post-De Niro world, when, largely, in fact, it's almost never true.

I was thrilled to work opposite Carl Reiner and Robert De Niro. Mr. Reiner was very chatty and delightful, but I learned that if you want Robert De Niro to like you, don't speak at all, and he'll be friendly to you.

Just watching Robert De Niro was all the words of wisdom I really needed.

With acting, it's all about internalizing the character for me and doing all the preparation you can. So the day you first step into your wardrobe, you can walk like the person. That's really the moment where the light bulb goes off. You're nervous; any actor will tell you that. Robert De Niro will probably tell you the same thing. He may not want to share that with you, but he probably goes through it. That's why actors are so neurotic.

Impressionists have to paint with a very broad stroke because you've got to see it within a couple of seconds. You go, "That's a really funny Robert De Niro." As an actor, though, you look at different aspects of a character. I try to completely surround myself with the assignment. It's like being in a big cloud and then some of it rains through.

With Robert De Niro, you're thinking, suddenly he'll do something you don't expect, or he appears and he's kind of slow to get there but then he gets there in a way that nobody does. Everybody is just really, extremely different.

Robert De Niro is just evolved as a human being. He's a very kind guy. Age has been good for him, in terms of just, he's very kind.

Robert De Niro, even though I've been in two other movies with him, I never really got to know him at all. But on this movie ["The Big Wedding"] I did.

I hadn't made that movie before and when I ever met the real Joy Mangano, which happened because De Niro insisted we meet her and her father, that's what she felt like to us. She impressed us with her quiet, serene authority with herself.

I'd rather go for Scorsese and De Niro. I just think he was so much better.

People think of me in the same breath as Robert Redford and Robert De Niro.

And as a director, you constantly try to solve problems, so you have to focus on that. You take away all the other parts. Of course, when the shot finishes, you remember that you have Robert De Niro in front of you. But when you're shooting, you just see a character in front of you, and an actor, and you try to search for very truthful moments. That's what obsesses you.

Robert De Niro inspires me as a young actor; even at that age and even with that success you have to come to work fully prepared and ready to dive into it, it doesn't matter how far in your career you are. And that's what he did. It was a real wake up call for me because I know actors who let success get to their head and then it affects their work.

Nobody is more truthful when he's acting than De Niro.

Take characters that Nicholson or De Niro play: they're not always tough

The better the actor, the less you know about his life. I mean, nobody's better than De Niro and you don't know anything about him, right?

Well I'd really love to work with Robert De Niro, because he's still the most talented actor out there.

I would love to have a part opposite a great actor - like, say, Pacino or De Niro or Hoffman. And to work with a top director. That's my dream.

As an actor there's a lot of scrutiny and, even when you've had success, it becomes about sustaining that success. A friend of mine described it as a peakless mountain. Even for Robert De Niro there's Al Pacino and for Pacino there's De Niro.

If you are handed something, it's a blessing and a curse. Look at hip hop artists, they produced everything themselves. Even people like Robert De Niro are getting into production. Again, it's art vs. marketing. Not everyone can take the risk. You have to break a few eggs to make a good omelet.

Once you get older, you get a little closer to yourself, intimate. I've always been very aware of that, more conscious of who I am, how I fit in the thing as opposed to trying to emulate someone else. Though, sometimes I try to emulate De Niro all the time, who is someone I could never be.

I don't think more concentration is required for Robert De Niro to do what he does as for Jim Carrey to do what he does.

I've been hooked on films ever since I can remember renting VHS tapes. But who got me hooked? I think life did. There wasn't a person or a mentor that got me hooked. I think it was the films themselves that influenced me. A specific memory that comes to mind is watching 'Goodfellas' when I was 12 and thought Robert De Niro looked so cool sitting at the bar smoking a cigarette and contemplating his next "move". I actually would copy his faces gestures and try and get into his mind frame. I would borrow mad dad's clothes and pretend I was a Mobster. So I guess I have to thank Robert DeNiro.

I got a chance to work with Stallone and De Niro - pretty much sums it up for me. You can tell where you're going in your career by the company you keep.

I had started off, before I ever got an acting job, working at Robert De Niro's Tribeca Productions as a reader. I was always interested in that side of the camera.

I would have to say honestly I was very pleased to be in a movie whether it was good or bad with De Niro, Norton and Brando even if I don't have any scenes with them I thought it was pretty good company to keep.

If I'm intimidated, I shouldn't be directing a movie. I gotta treat 'em as characters, not as stars. It's hard to not treat Marlon Brando as a legend, a star, it's difficult not to treat Robert De Niro as a star, but that had to go away very fast after I knew them, because I had to work with them. I'm the director, I'm the boss. They're looking to me for guidance.

People say I'm into black women. Robert De Niro is into black women. I'm just into women who are real, and they happen to be black.

It's something that people relate to - and I hope my kid doesn't relate to - but there's a level of believability in playing complex characters. You know, Christopher Walken has done some hilarious comedies, De Niro. There's great room for complexity and darkness to do well in comedies.

Best ever was filming in Barcelona last year, and I had a couple of scenes with De Niro. He's a very shy man. Speaks so quietly that people tend to bend down and adopt the same tone, almost the same voice, whenever they talk to him - watching, you'd think someone's offering to carry out a hit for him when they're just offering him a cup of coffee.

It may be a mistake to say this, but I know my limitations as an actor and I know what I can and can not do. Robert De Niro can do everything. I can't. A 'Highlander' movie is basically my thing. What I'm attempting to do is develop my ability as an actor and try to be the best I can be in the fantasy/action genre.

Analyze This is a good movie because Robert De Niro and Billy Crystal are really good. But without the material to put on the play, of course, they couldn't be good. For me, it starts with the writing.

I would love to work with Robert De Niro or Al Pacino. I think they're wonderful actors.

The fact is, though, what I think we really like is Marlon Brando, Al Pacino, Robert De Niro and James Gandolfini. We like what the media has created of the mob bosses in movies and TV and books, because it's something the average person never comes into contact with, it's almost as outwardly outlandish as a sexy vampire, and so we can romanticize it, it's non-threatening.

It's no stretch to picture me standing next to Al Pacino or Robert De Niro. Those are ethnic New York men. I'm an ethnic New York girl. Everybody has their limitations. I mean, I should never be cast as Queen Elizabeth.

The only reason I did Showtime was Robert De Niro. I definitely consider him to be in the top 5 all time actors.

The life of an action star is very short. I want to be an actor like Robert De Niro , like Dustin Hoffman or Clint Eastwood who in their 70s or 80s can still act.