Robert De Niro (Bob or Bobby to his friends) is known as of the world's greatest actors. De Niro's acting process is famously intense, delving deep into the "method" system taught by legendary acting coaches Stella Adler and Lee Strasberg. It's only natural to be curious what De Niro's costars say about him. Some love him, others hate him, but everyone comes away with a memorable story.
Over the years, many famous directors and actors have spoken about their time working with De Niro. These quotes tell the story of an unusual, thorough, and funny actor of the caliber Hollywood rarely sees.
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Martin Scorsese and Robert De Niro are two of cinema's most famous collaborators and friends, with a relationship stretching back to before Mean Streets in 1973. Over the years the pair has made at least nine films together and shared many compliments of each other.
One prime example was during Scorsese's introduction for De Niro at the 2009 Kennedy Center Honors:
There's no line between reality and pretend. There's only truth, and no one finds that truth better than Robert De Niro... All these years, there's still nothin' better in the world than making movies with your friends.
Jodie Foster was only 13 when she appeared in the dark classic Taxi Driver with De Niro. It proved to be a breakout moment for both of them, but it took some time for Foster to appreciate her older costar:
Robert De Niro and I had a bunch of outings, where he took me to different diners around town and walked through the script with me. After the first time, I was completely bored... I think I rolled my eyes at times because he really was awkward. But in those few outings, he really helped me understand improvisation and building a character in a way that was almost nonverbal.
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In press interviews for Jackie Brown, director Quentin Tarantino expressed his appreciation of De Niro's professional and thorough approach, "It was great working with Bob... because it's all about the character. There's not this moment or that moment... there's no vanity involved, it's all about character."
However, a phone call transcript leaked in 2008 suggested Tarantino got fed up with the actor once, and he dreaded De Niro's angry phone calls:
Tell Bob not to call me yelling and screaming... I don't know if I'm going to be nice [if] the guy calls up yelling and screaming at me like a maniac, calling me a f*cker!
Juliette Lewis played opposite De Niro in the 1991 Cape Fear remake, where their characters had a disturbing relationship together. Strangely, Lewis says this sometimes helped her stay ahead of De Niro:
It was to my advantage because I knew that was not a normal situation for [De Niro], interviewing young girls. I could tell he was a little uncomfortable. So I said something to put him at ease. I summed everything up very quickly, meaning I didn't tell him an elaborate story of all the... work I'd done. Usually when people go, "Oh my God, Bob [De Niro]," they're nervous to meet him and stuff because they feel inadequate... And I don't say I'm as good as him. I'm just confident about my own abilities.
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Al Pacino has had a long association with De Niro, going back to The Godfather: Part II and the two men have remained friends nearly as long. Pacino said, "I love Robert. I have known him for so long. It's always fun to work with people you trust and know."
The first time the men shared screen time was in Heat during a famous diner face-off scene: "The memory of it is good. When I think about it, I feel good. And when I see it, I feel good, too."
Sharon Stone was De Niro's costar in Casino, an opportunity she was eternally grateful for:
I think for a long time people just did not know what to do with me. I looked like a Barbie doll... and I said things that were alarming and... finally I got together with Marty and Bob, and they were like, "Give it all to us, baby, just let her rip if you've got it, we want it, let's see what you can do."
Years later, Stone admitted that she had told her acting teacher her secret goal was "to be able to sit across from Robert De Niro and hold my own."
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Kevin Costner appeared with De Niro in The Untouchables, in which the two played rivals in Chicago's underbelly. Costner apparently found the experience intimidating:
I had trouble with some of the scenes with [De Niro] because my character was very straight-arrow, and Robert was able to jump off the page. I was trying to survive with my straight-arrow language against someone who was throwing a level of street language at me that had a level of improv to it. So it was hard for me to survive in some of those scenes, and Sean [Connery] talked to me a little bit about it.
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Illeana Douglas was familiar with De Niro years before she appeared on screen with him, thanks to her relationship with Martin Scorsese. She had a knack for making him smile on the set of Goodfellas:
I had [one] routine called "Raging Bullwinkle." Basically, cartoon characters Rocky and Bullwinkle acting out a scene from Raging Bull as Jake and Joe LaMotta... I made Robert De Niro laugh.
When Douglas and De Niro did appear on screen together in an infamously intense Cape Fear scene, they worked together to brighten the mood for the crew:
The mood on set was so somber that Bob and I lightened things up by doing Three Stooges routines between takes just to let everyone know I was okay, that we were... acting.
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Sandra Bernhard played alongside De Niro in the 1982 cult classic The King of Comedy. Like many costars, she vouched for his intense acting method, "He is totally concentrated, totally absorbed in the role." But Bernhard didn't feel intimidated by his technique, rather the opposite:
When you work with great people, it gives you a sense of confidence, and it's a vote of confidence for your talents. You're like, "How can I go wrong here? These people aren't going to let me fall." It's the people that are threatened by everybody else that are going to trip you up.
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Ben Stiller has been De Niro's frequent costar in the Meet the Parents franchise. However, when Stiller first heard the news that he was going to be collaborating with the legendary actor, he didn't believe it. According to Stiller, "I remember before we made the first one, Jay Roach, the director, said to me, 'What do you think about Robert De Niro playing your father-in-law?' and I said, 'Great. Nice one. I'm sure that will happen."
Jay Roach later told Variety, "Ben is a very confident person, but around De Niro, he was so eager to please. He was uneasy, and I thought, 'How can I prolong this?' That's the movie!"
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Owen Wilson has paired up with De Niro several times while filming the Meet the Parents franchise. According to Wilson, though, he was so starstruck at De Niro that he almost didn't make it past the first movie:
I just kind of froze up when I saw De Niro, and Ben [Stiller] started laughing 'cause he could see what was happening. None of my lines came out - it was just gibberish. I was like - I had to steel myself for the next takes and [tell myself], "You've gotta get it together or you'll get fired!"
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Elia Kazan
Director Elia Kazan was controversial for being a "friendly witness" during the House Un-American Activities Committee hearings of the 1950s, but after casting De Niro in The Last Tycoon, the two stayed close until Kazan's passing. The director had kind words for De Niro in his 1997 memoirs:
Bobby is one of a select number of actors I've directed who work hard at their trade. He is more meticulous. He's very imaginative. He figures everything out both inside and outside.
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