London Film: Robert De Niro talks making films and playing a guy who, well, makes films
Do we need another movie about the movie business? Although no other town eats itself as voraciously as LA, Robert De Niro thought there was room for another course, cooked up from producer friend Art Linson’s tell-all memoir, What Just Happened? Bitter Hollywood Tales from the Front Line.
"I thought the book was funny and I said: ‘Jeez, Art, why don’t you write a script and we’ll do it?’” says De Niro. Linson obliged, fictionalising his warts-and-all anecdotes into a tale of beleaguered producer Ben (played by De Niro), struggling with an ex-wife, a British director who refuses to cut a dog being shot out of his Sean Penn movie following a disastrous test screening, and Bruce Willis arriving on the set of Ben’s latest film sporting a beard.
In real life, it was Alec Baldwin’s determination to wear a beard in The Edge that led to threats of lawsuits if he did not shave. The dog episode may be based on a test screening of This Boy’s Life, which Linson imagines leaving distribution staff in “the back alley throwing up on their shoes” and saying: “Oh, mother of Christ, De Niro is in this dining room kicking the living p**s out of sweet little Leonardo DiCaprio. How the f*** are we going to sell this s**t?”
De Niro makes several appearances in the book. And he repays Linson with a performance that captures the producer’s underlying fear of the axe falling on his career at any time, as well as his sincere desire to make something good.
“As veterans, we understand each other,” he says. “I’m cynical at times, as is Art. That’s why we have a great relationship.”
While the nature of Hollywood has not really changed, the demands of the media have grown. De Niro has always tried to protect his private life and rarely lets his guard down in interviews.
“I instinctively know I want to stay away from that,” he says. “Sometimes I will be honest and frank about stuff, but not all the time.”
De Niro reveals he has recently been working with British director Kirk Jones on a drama called Everybody’s Fine, and adds he is keen to helm a sequel to 2006’s The Good Shepherd, which he directed.
“I hope it will be out there within the next three or four years,” he says. “I don’t expect to do more than five movies in my life, if I’m lucky.”
რობერტ დე ნირო / Robert De Niro, დღემდე ვგიჟდები ამ კაცზე
