Having starred in The Godfather II, Goodfellas and Once Upon a Time in America, De Niro is now playing his Mafia associations for laughs.
To misquote Bananarama, Robert De Niro has kept me waiting.
For more than a decade I’ve been interviewing film stars for The Sunday Post but De Niro, an actor who has starred in some of my favourite films of all time, has not been one of them.
He’s renowned for being publicity shy and there have been a couple of occasions where he has cancelled at short notice, my hopes dashed to the floor to quote the 1980s all-female pop trio again.
But now the wait is over.
On a drizzly day in London, Robert De Niro is sitting opposite me in the Dorchester Hotel, talking about The Family.
Having starred in The Godfather II, Goodfellas and Once Upon a Time in America, De Niro is now playing his Mafia associations for laughs.
“It’s an unusual take on the mobster genre,” admitted the bearded Robert.
The two-time Oscar winner plays mob boss Giovanni Manzoni, who breaks the sacred code of omerta and snitches on his crew.
Given the new identity of Fred Blake, he and his family are
relocated to a sleepy town in France under the Witness Protection Programme.
But old habits die hard and, despite the vigilance of the FBI’s Agent Stansfield (Tommy Lee Jones), both Fred, his firecracker wife Maggie (Michelle Pfeiffer) and their two children can’t help resorting to handling their problems the “family” way.
“I spoke to some people, trying to find a believable reason why they’d be in France. We didn’t quite find it, but this story is not about accuracy in the Witness Protection Programme,” De Niro smiled.
“Every place they’ve been resettled, they’ve ended up in hot water. Now they’re in the middle of nowhere and it might as well be Mars.
“I had some experience of Witness Protection when I made Goodfellas.
“I talked to Henry Hill (the character played by Ray Liotta who turned state’s witness in the true story film) a bit. Every time I had a question I’d get word to him that I needed to talk to him and then he’d call me.”
Whether comedy, fictional drama or based on a true story, the gangster movie has an eternal appeal, as Robert is well-placed to testify.
“I guess people are fascinated by them because they’re against the establishment. They break the law and they break the rules.”
Although he has made more comedies in recent years his next, Last Vegas, is due out in January De Niro says his heart is in drama and he hopes to be renewing his on-screen partnership with Martin Scorsese in the near future, which would be their first actor/director collaboration since Casino in 1995.
“We’re preparing it, we have a script but Marty has another film he’s going to do before that one, so we won’t be doing it for a while.”
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