“Winning the Lifetime's Achievement Award at BAFTA and the Golden Globe are prestigious but not all for an actor always on the lookout for histrionic experiments. Even the Oscars are not the last word.”
Robert De Niro laughs as he speaks in a telephonic conversation from London after being awarded the Cecil B. DeMille Award.
Looking forward
The actor who is considered to be in the same league as Marlon Brando, Richard Burton and Al Pacino has releases to look forward to this year. “You will see me as a very different character with positive as well as grey shades in ‘Limitless', directed by Neil Berger in which I play Carl Von Loon; a fascinating character who speaks more with his eyes than dialogues. The backdrop of a publishing house forms an interesting tale in ‘Limitless'; I am sure it will be a brilliant film.”
Another important film is “Killer Elite”, directed by the enigmatic Gary Mckendry. Robert De Niro elaborates, “Not a great film but an interesting thriller based on facts about a secret hit squad, The Clinic, which struck at and killed a number of British Special Air Service officers and men. It also talks about the Feather Men, Air Service officers who are appointed to wipe out The Clinic. Lots of action woven with emotion, suspense and contemporary events. Some combat scenes were very effectively shot without doubles.”
When will he work again with Martin Scorsese with whom he made outstanding films like “The Raging Bull” and “Taxi Driver”? He laughs, “I am always there for Martin. He only needs to approach me with a special script and we strike a deal again. He is one director who delves deep into each of his subjects while scripting and works on his actors; even enacting scenes for them with élan.”
Is he not fed up of hard core action films? Robert Di Niro pauses and then answers, “That's an intelligent question. I rarely receive a character like the one in ‘Falling in Love'. While performing with Meryl Streep, the best actress after Ingrid Bergman, I was conscious that she was a real scene stealer. So during our romantic encounters, I concentrated on the language of my face and opted for low key dialogue delivery with seven modulations in one intense scene.”
“The Untouchables”, his best performance as an antihero, is still considered a trendsetter. Does he feel he was at his best in villainy? He laughs again. “Do you know in that scene where I emote watching a show trying to desperately be innocent, director Brian D' Palma literally laughed his heart out after canning the shot in one take. I understood from his laughter that I was able to deliver exactly what he desired of me as an actor.” Robert De Niro cherishes his experience of working with highly gifted actors like Sir Sean Connery and Kevin Costner in “The Untouchables”.
He confesses, “Highly gifted actors like Al Pacino, Harrison Ford and Denzel Washington have been misused in many Hollywood films, which only capitalise on their star charisma and action abilities. Marlon Brando once told me to opt only for those films that had a close resemblance to worldly happenings. He genuinely felt Hollywood destroys talents just as it creates. European cinema particularly of Russia, Poland, Greece and France is far ahead of Hollywood. One of the most memorable films of recent times was “Weeping Meadows”, a Greek classic.”
Preparation
Speaking of method acting, he explains, “I am basically a method actor who undergoes a lot of preparation to face the camera. However, method acting will not work for films like ‘Falling in Love' or ‘The Untouchables'. To show versatility, an actor needs to transcend barriers of method with some amount of instinct and spontaneity. Overdoing is not correct and too much underplaying also restricts reality. If you think of Gregory Peck in “To Kill A Mocking Bird”, Peter O' Tool in “Becket” and Omar Sharif in “Dr. Zhivago”, you notice none of them opted for method acting yet their performances are memorable ones.
He is keen to visit India and is fond of the versatile Naseeruddin Shah, the gorgeous Dimple Kapadia and the dashing Sushmita Sen for whom he has lot of affection. And he signs off, “I met actor-director Satish Kaushik whom I found an interesting personality but I am eager to visit the residence of Satyajit Ray who fondly called me an actor of solid substance. After all Hollywood is yet to create an ‘Apu' Trilogy or a ‘Charulata'.”
