I, for one, thought the movie was damn good. Directed by Jonathan Jakubowicz, the film is about the rise and fall of boxing superstar, Roberto Durán, played by Édgar Ramírez, and his trainer, Ray Arcel, played by De Niro.Īn hour and a half later, we filed out of the theater, squinting in the bright sunshine of southern France. The next afternoon, I lined up behind a hundred other privileged film professionals and was admitted to a hush-hush screening of Hands of Stone. His reputation as an immensely talented, intense, innovative actor was cemented long ago, making it all the more remarkable that De Niro has not slowed down at all in recent years, and in fact has expanded his range with solid performances in comedies such as Meet the Parents (2000) and The Intern (2015). Piers Morgan once called on journalists to boycott De Niro, saying he was a “bloody nightmare” and “one step removed from interviewing a corpse.” Nevertheless, I figured I would somehow rise to the occasion, so I texted back, “Yes, I can!” and proceeded to hunker down in a back corner of the café with my computer and a series of double espressos.īorn in Manhattan’s Greenwich Village, Robert Anthony De Niro studied method acting in the early ’60s with mentors Stella Adler and Lee Strasberg, and then launched a five-decade career that includes outstanding performances in such seminal films as The Godfather Part II (1974), Taxi Driver (1976), New York, New York (1977), The Deer Hunter (1978), Raging Bull (1980), King of Comedy (1983), Cape Fear (1991), Goodfellas (1990) and Casino (1995), to name only a handful of his 100-plus credits.

Second, whether fair or not, De Niro has a notorious reputation for being a challenging subject and has been described as “difficult,” “obnoxious” and “sphinx-like,” walking out of interviews if he doesn’t like the questions.

First, I had only two days to prepare to interview De Niro, the most respected, awarded and critically acclaimed actor of his generation. I had just arrived on the Croisette for this year’s Cannes Film Festival and was having lunch at my regular table at the Brasserie du Casino, a lovely little eatery across from the red-carpeted Palais des Festivals, when marching orders from the editors at MovieMaker came thundering through my smartphone and sent a tingle down my spine: see Robert De Niro’s new film Hands of Stone and interview him, along with co-star Édgar Ramírez, about their acting process.

Robert de niro boxing