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The Hindu
14-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Hindu
Cannes 2025: Robert De Niro receives standing ovation, Palme d'Or from Leonardo DiCaprio
Veteran actor and filmmaker Robert De Niro was honoured with a standing ovation at the 78th Cannes Film Festival on May 13, as he received the honourary Palme d'Or for lifetime achievement. The award was presented by Leonardo DiCaprio, De Niro's longtime collaborator and friend. The opening ceremony of Cannes 2025 marked a significant moment in cinema history as De Niro, 81, was celebrated for his decades-long contribution to the film industry. Known for his iconic roles in Taxi Driver, The Deer Hunter, and Awakenings, De Niro took the stage to rapturous applause, delivering a speech that highlighted the importance of artistic freedom and democracy. 'Art looks for truth. Art embraces diversity. That's why art is a threat. That's why we are a threat to autocrats and fascists,' he said. De Niro used the global platform to issue a sharp critique of U.S. President Donald Trump, criticizing recent policies on arts funding and international film taxation. 'Our president cut funding to arts and education. Now he's taxing foreign films 100%. Let that sink in,' he stated, urging the public to 'organize, protest, and vote.' He ended his speech with the French national motto: 'Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité.' Joining De Niro at the event was his partner, Tiffany Chen. The couple made a joint appearance on the red carpet and at the screening of Partir Un Jour (Leave One Day), wearing coordinated black outfits. Their presence at the festival drew attention, particularly given their previous visit in 2023 shortly after the birth of their daughter. DiCaprio, who starred with De Niro in Killers of the Flower Moon, praised the actor while presenting the award. The ceremony also featured appearances from jury president Juliette Binoche, Halle Berry, Jeremy Armstrong and more, among other notable figures in the film world. Cannes 2025 runs from May 12 to May 24 and opened with a surprise appearance by Quentin Tarantino.
Mint
14-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Mint
Cannes Festival 2025: Robert De Niro honoured with standing ovation, receives Palme d'Or from Leonardo DiCaprio
Robert De Niro, the renowned film producer was honoured with a standing ovation at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival on May 13. The 81-year-old film producer was awarded with the most coveted Palme d'Or, a lifetime achievement award by the popular Hollywood icon Leonardo DiCaprio. At the opening ceremony of 78th edition of the famous Cannes Film Festival, Robert De Niro received the honorary Palme d'Or Award which is a lifetime achievement award awarded to iconic personalities for their outstanding work in the entertainment industry. Notably, his contribution to film industry was recognised at this global stage through this accolade. This is a landmark moment in history of cinema for the actor known for Taxi Driver, The Deer Hunter, Awakenings and more. Robert De Niro said, 'In my country, we are fighting like hell for the democracy we once took for granted,' during his acceptance speech. He warned about threats to democracy.
The Independent
15-03-2025
- Entertainment
- The Independent
Stephen Graham shares touching tribute to Robert De Niro: ‘Thank you from the bottom of my heart'
Stephen Graham thanked Robert De Niro during a heartfelt moment on The One Show for kickstarting his love of acting and film at an early age. The two heavyweight actors appeared on the BBC show on Thursday (13 March) to promote their new projects. Graham is currently earning rave reviews for his gripping new Netflix drama Adolescence. Meanwhile, fresh off the heels of Zero Day, De Niro is returning to the gangster genre with the movie The Alto Knights. The pair have previously starred alongside one another in Martin Scorsese's acclaimed The Irishman but Graham revealed on The One Show that De Niro holds a special place in his heart beyond sharing a screen. Graham recalled when he was a teenager and his father asking him when he was 14 if he was serious about becoming an actor. When Graham said yes his father decided to take him to the local video store where they rented three movies: The Godfather, Taxi Driver and The Deer Hunter. 'Then we went home and we watched these three films and we watched them all over the weekend, Graham said. 'And, you know, it was just… You were the beginning of my whole love of favourite films, really." Turning to De Niro, he added: 'I don't think I ever told you that. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.' View this post on Instagram A post shared by BBC The One Show (@bbctheoneshow) De Niro, 81, stars in Taxi Driver and The Deer Hunter, both of which earned him an Oscar nomination. The One Show has since shared the interaction on Instagram and the post has been flooded with warm responses by viewers. One person said: 'I think there's probably a young boy saying the same thing to his dad about Stephen Graham. He's a brilliant actor.' Another wrote: 'A legend being thanked by a future legend.' A third added: 'Stephen is so humble. A brilliant actor, a true gentleman and icon .. a true inspiration.' Speaking to The Independent about Adolescence, Graham issued a warning to parents about the dangers of the internet. Shot in one-take, each episode follows characters in real time as they attempt to get to the bottom of the incident. Exploring topical issues including incel culture, misogyny and the online 'manosphere', Graham was inspired by news reports of stabbings of young girls. 'I read an article about a young boy stabbing a young girl,' the A Thousand Blows star said. 'And then maybe a couple of months later, on the news there was [another] young boy who'd stabbed a young girl, and if I'm really honest with you, they hurt my heart.' He explained that the storyline explores a complexity of topics and that parents need to be 'mindful' of the external influences working on their children. 'It's just being mindful of the fact that not only we parent our children, and not only the school educates our children,' he said. 'But also there's influences that we have no idea of that are having profound effects on our young culture, profound effects, positive and extremely negative. So it's having a look at that and seeing that we're all accountable.'
Yahoo
11-02-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
‘It's like doing three movies at once': Robert De Niro on his thrilling TV debut – as America's saviour
Art mirrors life on the Netflix show Zero Day, a tense political thriller for Donald Trump's second term. There are mobs on the street and far-right trolls on TV. There's a billionaire making mischief and a state of uproar in Congress. Robert De Niro stars as ex-president George Mullen, whisked out of retirement to investigate a crippling cyber-attack. Mullen is dogged and courageous, but he's a man of the past, not quite on his mettle. His daughter thinks he's out of touch. 'The world has changed in ways he doesn't understand,' says his wife. I'm excited to talk to De Niro about Zero Day and its real-world echoes. The show's politics are what drew him to the project. The actor has made no secret of his disgust and loathing for Trump. But our Zoom interview comes with constraints. Netflix have requested that there be 'no personal or political questions' and have dispatched a pair of publicists to serve as chaperones. Even ex-presidents and movie stars have to work within a wider system. Sometimes it gives them freedom. At other times, maybe not. De Niro beams in from his home in New York. He looks the very ideal of an 81-year-old man: trim and handsome, with platinum hair and professorial specs. There is a potted fern by his head and a barking dog at his feet. One good thing about making Zero Day was that it kept him close to his infant daughter Gia, the youngest of his seven children. At his age, he has learned to choose his roles more carefully. 'I had another thing offered to me over in eastern Europe recently. It was a terrific script but I couldn't make it work and one of the sticking points was the location.' New York shoots are the best, he says. 'It's important, it helps, especially with kids and so on.' Everyone will have their favourite De Niro performance, whether it's silken Vito Corleone or toxic Jake LaMotta; the harried bounty hunter from Midnight Run or the traumatised Green Beret from The Deer Hunter. Naturally, the actor has his own favourites. Yesterday he was at a school fundraiser and the other parents – all much younger than him – were clamouring to discuss his role in Martin Scorsese's Taxi Driver, which was nice and strange, because there is no way of predicting which films will last and which won't. 'I mean, we always liked that script,' he says. 'We thought it was special. Marty and myself, and Paul Schrader who wrote it. But after that you never know. So there's [Taxi Driver], obviously, but there are other ones, too. The Godfather II, Raging Bull, King of Comedy. Everything I did with Marty Scorsese. Roland Joffe's The Mission. David O Russell, Barry Levinson.' He shrugs. 'I've been lucky to work with these great directors.' Zero Day is no Taxi Driver, but it makes for a fine autumn flourish. Netflix's thriller was devised by a pair of political journalists – the New York Times correspondent Michael S Schmidt and former NBC producer Noah Oppenheim – and depicts a United States that can be switched on and off like a light. Shadowy malware knocks out the air traffic control system and redirects trains on to the same stretch of track. The country panics, conspiracy theories abound and the crisis plays out over six precision-tooled episodes. It's a big, glossy production with myriad subplots and an ensemble cast. But De Niro is the linchpin and brings the whole thing back to centre. He's always thought of himself as a big-screen actor but knows TV has changed and figured this might be a good time to dive in. The average film shoot can feel like a sprint; this felt more akin to a marathon. 'It's like doing three features at once,' he says. 'I likened it to being in the Channel between France and England and looking back. I can't see France any more and I can't see England. So I've got to keep swimming, staying up with the scenes, the endless information, the thrust of the story. Stay ahead of it, stay on it. So it was a whole other kind of experience for me.' His hero, George Mullen, is a one-term president who bowed out in the wake of a family bereavement. He's imperfect but decent; an old-school public servant. 'I had the idea of a president who was trusted, well-liked, and who told the truth as much as he could,' says De Niro. 'He's a person who tries to be straightforward. Who has no agenda other than to do the right thing.' I ask if Mullen is based on anyone in particular and he says that no, he's really not; maybe Joe Biden very slightly. I say that he reminded me more of Jimmy Carter, a much respected commander-in-chief, and he accepts that there may be some truth in that. 'Well, Carter was a great president. He was a good person, a kind person, empathetic. No one really gave him credit until the end. But that was important to me, that he was a good person. I didn't know this [at the time] but I watched interviews about him that say he was also a little standoffish, an outsider in certain ways, and that's interesting to me, too.' One president whom Mullen emphatically doesn't resemble is Donald Trump. De Niro despises Trump on an almost visceral level. He has been one of the man's most outspoken public critics. He's called him a pig and a punk and a con artist and a dog. He's called him a jerk and a mutt, a real-estate hustler and a two-bit playboy. But today he's saying nothing. He is courteous but seems wary. The publicists ping me a message suggesting I return my focus to the show. The best artists – the best actors – are hot-wired to their times. De Niro, arguably more than any other living actor, embodied the turbulent last decades of the American century. His golden years were entwined with Vietnam and Watergate, spiking crime rates and a borderline bankrupt New York City. So he's familiar with political instability, with division and anger and a sense of chaos. But I get the impression that the situation under Trump (the tariffs, cuts and firings; the repurposing of the federal government) is different. More than that, I suspect he thinks it's without precedent. 'Well, I'd ask you that,' he shoots back. 'Do you think it is?' 'I think it is,' I tell him. 'But I don't have your reach of history.' 'Yeah, you're a lot younger than me.' He pauses. 'But it is unprecedented. It is. It just is. As we all know.' Is he hopeful or despairing? 'I'm not despairing, because I always look at the bright side and hope that things will right themselves and that people will appreciate goodness and empathy and will try to do the right thing. So I can't help but think that.' Another pause. 'Some people look at [things] differently. They have different values. That's disturbing to me. I don't understand it. But I just have to look at things in an optimistic way.' De Niro's Zoom window is minimised and one of the publicists drops in. 'Sorry to interrupt,' she says. 'But can you just bring it back to show questions?' Michael S Schmidt – Zero Day's co-creator – is still on staff at the New York Times. Last month he filed a story about the president's threatened reprisals against his perceived enemies. Schmidt and his co-writer Glenn Thrush contacted more than two dozen of Trump's most vehement public critics. Almost all, they said, now declined to speak up in case it made them a target. I mention this article to De Niro and make one last attempt. 'I'm wondering,' I say, 'if you're now feeling you need to be more careful about what you say.' He has no time to answer. The publicist pitches in. 'No, no, no. Sorry, Xan, I'm really sorry but we agreed this. Can we just go back to the show because we don't have much time.' And that is the end of our Trump conversation – inasmuch as it ever became one at all. I've had car-crash interviews in the past and I'm unsure this quite qualifies as one. It's too polite and well-managed; the tone is faintly apologetic. It's not even clear who is in the driving seat here. Is it the actor's decision not to discuss Trump with the press or does his contract have him muzzled? Either way it begs an obvious question. If De Niro – a world-famous two-time Oscar-winning millionaire – no longer feels he is able to speak out, one wonders who in the US does. In Zero Day, De Niro effectively plays the role of backstop, the US's last line of defence. President Mullen's Secret Service codename is Legend. Colleagues describe him as a knight in shining armour. He is old and exhausted, but his values are sound and he's still up for a fight. We need heroes like that, says De Niro, both on TV and in films. 'And in the real world, yeah, of course.' Zero Day is on Netflix from 20 February. • The headline of this article was amended on 7 February 2025. Robert De Niro's character in Zero Day is a former US president, not a current one as an earlier version said.
The Guardian
07-02-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
‘It's like doing three movies at once': Robert De Niro on his thrilling TV debut – as the US president
Art mirrors life on the Netflix show Zero Day, a tense political thriller for Donald Trump's second term. There are mobs on the street and far-right trolls on TV. There's a billionaire making mischief and a state of uproar in Congress. Robert De Niro stars as ex-president George Mullen, whisked out of retirement to investigate a crippling cyberattack. Mullen is dogged and courageous, but he's a man of the past, not quite on his mettle. His daughter thinks he's out of touch. 'The world has changed in ways he doesn't understand,' says his wife. I'm excited to talk to De Niro about Zero Day and its real-world echoes. The show's politics are what drew him to the project. The actor has made no secret of his disgust and loathing for Trump. But our Zoom interview comes with constraints. Netflix have requested that there be 'no personal or political questions' and have dispatched a pair of publicists to serve as chaperones. Even ex-presidents and movie stars have to work within a wider system. Sometimes it gives them freedom. At other times, maybe not. De Niro beams in from his home in New York. He looks the very ideal of an 81-year-old man: trim and handsome, with platinum hair and professorial specs. There is a potted fern by his head and a barking dog at his feet. One good thing about making Zero Day was that it kept him close to his infant daughter Gia, the youngest of his seven children. At his age, he has learned to choose his roles more carefully. 'I had another thing offered to me over in eastern Europe recently. It was a terrific script but I couldn't make it work and one of the sticking points was the location.' New York shoots are the best, he says. 'It's important, it helps, especially with kids and so on.' Everyone will have their favourite De Niro performance, whether it's silken Vito Corleone or toxic Jake LaMotta; the harried bounty hunter from Midnight Run or the traumatised Green Beret from The Deer Hunter. Naturally, the actor has his own favourites. Yesterday he was at a school fundraiser and the other parents – all much younger than him – were clamouring to discuss his role in Martin Scorsese's Taxi Driver, which was nice and strange, because there is no way of predicting which films will last and which won't. 'I mean, we always liked that script,' he says. 'We thought it was special. Marty and myself, and Paul Schrader who wrote it. But after that you never know. So there's [Taxi Driver], obviously, but there are other ones, too. The Godfather II, Raging Bull, King of Comedy. Everything I did with Marty Scorsese. Roland Joffe's The Mission. David O Russell, Barry Levinson.' He shrugs. 'I've been lucky to work with these great directors.' Zero Day is no Taxi Driver, but it makes for a fine autumn flourish. Netflix's thriller was devised by a pair of political journalists – the New York Times correspondent Michael S Schmidt and former NBC producer Noah Oppenheim – and depicts a United States that can be switched on and off like a light. Shadowy malware knocks out the air traffic control system and redirects trains on to the same stretch of track. The country panics, conspiracy theories abound and the crisis plays out over six precision-tooled episodes. It's a big, glossy production with myriad subplots and an ensemble cast. But De Niro is the linchpin and brings the whole thing back to centre. He's always thought of himself as a big-screen actor but knows TV has changed and figured this might be a good time to dive in. The average film shoot can feel like a sprint; this felt more akin to a marathon. 'It's like doing three features at once,' he says. 'I likened it to being in the Channel between France and England and looking back. I can't see France any more and I can't see England. So I've got to keep swimming, staying up with the scenes, the endless information, the thrust of the story. Stay ahead of it, stay on it. So it was a whole other kind of experience for me.' His hero, George Mullen, is a one-term president who bowed out in the wake of a family bereavement. He's imperfect but decent; an old-school public servant. 'I had the idea of a president who was trusted, well-liked, and who told the truth as much as he could,' says De Niro. 'He's a person who tries to be straightforward. Who has no agenda other than to do the right thing.' I ask if Mullen is based on anyone in particular and he says that no, he's really not; maybe Joe Biden very slightly. I say that he reminded me more of Jimmy Carter, a much respected commander-in-chief, and he accepts that there may be some truth in that. 'Well, Carter was a great president. He was a good person, a kind person, empathetic. No one really gave him credit until the end. But that was important to me, that he was a good person. I didn't know this [at the time] but I watched interviews about him that say he was also a little standoffish, an outsider in certain ways, and that's interesting to me, too.' One president whom Mullen emphatically doesn't resemble is Donald Trump. De Niro despises Trump on an almost visceral level. He has been one of the man's most outspoken public critics. He's called him a pig and a punk and a con artist and a dog. He's called him a jerk and a mutt, a real-estate hustler and a two-bit playboy. But today he's saying nothing. He is courteous but seems wary. The publicists ping me a message suggesting I return my focus to the show. The best artists – the best actors – are hot-wired to their times. De Niro, arguably more than any other living actor, embodied the turbulent last decades of the American century. His golden years were entwined with Vietnam and Watergate, spiking crime rates and a borderline bankrupt New York City. So he's familiar with political instability, with division and anger and a sense of chaos. But I get the impression that the situation under Trump (the tariffs, cuts and firings; the repurposing of the federal government) is different. More than that, I suspect he thinks it's without precedent. 'Well, I'd ask you that,' he shoots back. 'Do you think it is?' 'I think it is,' I tell him. 'But I don't have your reach of history.' 'Yeah, you're a lot younger than me.' He pauses. 'But it is unprecedented. It is. It just is. As we all know.' Is he hopeful or despairing? 'I'm not despairing, because I always look at the bright side and hope that things will right themselves and that people will appreciate goodness and empathy and will try to do the right thing. So I can't help but think that.' Another pause. 'Some people look at [things] differently. They have different values. That's disturbing to me. I don't understand it. But I just have to look at things in an optimistic way.' De Niro's Zoom window is minimised and one of the publicists drops in. 'Sorry to interrupt,' she says. 'But can you just bring it back to show questions?' Michael S Schmidt – Zero Day's co-creator – is still on staff at the New York Times. Last month he filed a story about the president's threatened reprisals against his perceived enemies. Schmidt and his co-writer Glenn Thrush contacted more than two dozen of Trump's most vehement public critics. Almost all, they said, now declined to speak up in case it made them a target. I mention this article to De Niro and make one last attempt. 'I'm wondering,' I say, 'if you're now feeling you need to be more careful about what you say.' He has no time to answer. The publicist pitches in. 'No, no, no. Sorry, Xan, I'm really sorry but we agreed this. Can we just go back to the show because we don't have much time.' And that is the end of our Trump conversation – inasmuch as it ever became one at all. I've had car-crash interviews in the past and I'm unsure this quite qualifies as one. It's too polite and well-managed; the tone is faintly apologetic. It's not even clear who is in the driving seat here. Is it the actor's decision not to discuss Trump with the press or does his contract have him muzzled? Either way it begs an obvious question. If De Niro – a world-famous two-time Oscar-winning millionaire – no longer feels he is able to speak out, one wonders who in the US does. In Zero Day, De Niro effectively plays the role of backstop, the US's last line of defence. President Mullen's Secret Service codename is Legend. Colleagues describe him as a knight in shining armour. He is old and exhausted, but his values are sound and he's still up for a fight. We need heroes like that, says De Niro, both on TV and in films. 'And in the real world, yeah, of course.' Zero Day is on Netflix from 20 February.
