Who is Robert DeNiro?
In the never-ending “best actor” and “best film star” lists that arrive every year, Robert DeNiro is always in the top three. He is seen as one of the greatest actors of his generation. His fees per film reached the 20 million US dollar (USD) mark in 2002 with Analyze That. Known for his method acting techniques, Robert DeNiro is arguably the most impressive actor working in films today. Robert DeNiro was born in New York City in 1943 to two artists. At the age of 17, he told friends he was going to be a movie actor. DeNiro dropped out of school in his final year and joined Stella Adler’s acting school, where he studied an acting technique known as The Method. One of his first films was Mean Streets. Directed by Martin Scorsese and also starring Harvey Keitel, it was to be the start of a lifelong actor/director partnership. DeNiro’s boyhood idols included Marlon Brando, Montgomery Clift and Robert Mitchum. He preferred the darker, more complex work of these men to that of older Hollywo
Why is he so reticent about interviews? Is he merely shy, or is he trying to hide something? Or is it that there’s nothing inside, that there is no Robert DeNiro outside of his roles? The titles of articles in the popular press about DeNiro often foreground the problem this star presents: “`You Talkin to Me?’ `No!'” “Man of Few Words” “The Phantom of the Cinema” “The Return of the Silent Screen Star” It seems that the voice least heard from about DeNiro is DeNiro’s own voice. Robert DeNiro becomes a structuring absence in the discourse about himself. This essay investigates the articles in the popular press that specifically feature Robert DeNiro and seeks to explain the significance of this foregrounded silence. This breakdown in the interview process helps us to see some of the assumptions underlying the normally transparent workings of the system of film publicity. This silence has bearing on the nature of the film star, the status of the film actor, and the literature concerning We
