”I`m always dissatisfied with things I do. I`m never fully satisfied,”
says Robert De Niro to a roomful of journalists hanging on his every word. Not that there`s a torrent of words to hang on. De Niro may not exactly be the Garbo of this generation, a recluse who wants to be alone, but he`s not interested in revealing himself. ”How come I stay so private? I guess it`s instinct. It`s not a question of being private. It`s a question of keeping your life in balance,” says Hollywood`s most unreachable actor.
He`s here, in a cream-and-gold room in Ivana Trump`s new toy, the Plaza Hotel, to plug his new movie, ”Midnight Run,” which opened Wednesday in Chicago. In it, he plays a Chicago ex-cop working as an L.A. bounty hunter.
The film is a combination action movie and road comedy. De Niro drags a bail-jumping embezzler, played by Charles Grodin, from New York to L.A., dodging the Mafia, the FBI and another bounty-hunting rival on the way. He almost did ”Big,” the body-exchange movie starring Tom Hanks. ”I have been thinking about doing things in another way,” De Niro says. It`s as close as he`ll come to saying he wanted to try a comedy.
Compared to De Niro, who answers questions monosyllabically, Hollywood loners Robert Redford and Harrison Ford are bare-it-all types. It`s an odd kind of armoring we`re watching here. And one that feeds the public perception of the De Niro persona. Not since Marlon Brando, whose best work came a generation ago, has American film had an actor of such obsessive purity and intensity, so fiercely focused on his work. Even when De Niro is in a less-than-riveting film, you can`t take your eyes off him because you know he`s going to push things to the edge.
He`s not quite the brooder Brando was. But he is this generation`s deep soul on celluloid, the one who turns acting into religion. His reluctance to verbalize isn`t perversity, you feel. It may be something closer to superstition or a belief that to dissect is to destroy without ever getting near the complexity or reality of a situation, anyway.
De Niro is most eloquent when simply squinting at a questioner or taking a moment to work out an answer. What he projects is an extension of the intense interiorization he personifies on screen-as in the inarticulate but gentle-souled dying ballplayer in ”Bang the Drum Slowly,” the honorable, silent redeemer in ”The Deer Hunter,” the young priest in ”True
Confessions.”
He`s also been known-and for a while even typecast-as an actor who gravitates toward pent-up, explosive characters (”Mean Streets,” ”Taxi Driver,” ”Raging Bull,” ”The King of Comedy”). Although ”Midnight Run” is lighter, his short-fused ex-cop, Jack Walsh, is described as having only two modes of expression: silence and rage. He`s a patented De Niro character, with more boiling inside him than he ever lets out, Vesuvius on a countdown-but sensitive. We can believe he`s choked up in a scene where he sees his young daughter for the first time in years.
Does De Niro know how he does it? He can`t do it that many times and not know, at least instinctively. Is he saying? Forget it. How did he prepare for this role? ”Every part is different. One I approach one way, one another.”
Did he spend time with police officers and bounty hunters? ”Going out with bounty hunters was not so easy. I had more luck going out with the police. Sometimes there`s a lot of waiting around. You wait, then you get a phone call. Then you look. It`s dangerous. The drama is in little spurts that come when they come. Sometimes they`re there. Mostly not. There is a risk going with the police. You have to sign a release, wear a bulletproof vest. It`s a little dangerous.”
But what was the challenge of this particular role? ”There weren`t really major challenges. There weren`t things that were hard, unless I`ve forgotten.” Did you like the idea of playing someone more like a normal guy? ”Who`s normal once you get to know them? He might have been more normal than Travis,” he says, referring to De Niro`s character in ”Taxi Driver.”
”To me, to get to know a person is more interesting, to know the other sides of people than those we usually see in public. People identify with it, these other sides. They don`t admit it, but they do. But you see these other sides more in novels than in movies.”
Which side of himself did he draw on for this character? ”In everything you do, there`s always a part of you. You draw on that. It doesn`t mean you become that person.” Does he find it easier, feel less exposed, when he emphasizes a character`s physical characteristics, such as the famous 50 pounds he put on for the ”Raging Bull” role? ”I like to approach roles physically. Sometimes it`s easier. Sometimes you can free yourself by doing other things physically. In a way, it`s covering up. But it`s the way you can let yourself go. It`s a contradiction.” Of the roles he`s played, which most closely approximates him? ”That`s sort of a private thing.”
Does he worry a lot before shooting a role? ”I don`t know if I stay up nights, pacing. I could. If I have to shoot the next morning and haven`t found anything.” What about analyzing his own performances, judging them? ”It`s very hard. You see things, the way you look, that get in the way. You`re always wanting to feel fully satisfied. I see them, I buy the videos, yeah, I do. To see where you`re going, what you did. I see them, but I like to see them years later.” Did he mind, or prefer, doing smaller roles, such as the ones in ”Brazil,” ”The Untouchables,” ”Angel Heart”? ”I do feel it`s the job to do the film and the film has to work. You don`t want to not help. But it`s nice to get out from under the responsibility of carrying it.”
Brando`s fleeing skills carried him to his own private island in the South Seas. De Niro, who grew up in Greenwich Village, made his acting debut as the Cowardly Lion in a ”Wizard of Oz” production and left school at 16 to act professionally, achieves just as much remoteness holed up in the downtown loft where he lives. His reputation preceded him to the ”Midnight Run”
shoot. ”I was concerned,” says Grodin. ”He gains 50 pounds, he loses 50 pounds. If you have a scene on a bus, he`s going to drive a bus for five hours. You`re worried it`s going to be a depressing experience. But I liked working with him. He`s a nice, sensitive gentleman. His life resembles the kind of spirit he played in `The Godfather.` You think you`re going out for a light dinner, and all of a sudden he`s making toasts.”
Says Dennis Farina, the real-life ex-Chicago cop who plays a racketeer in ”Midnight Run”: ”He puts you at ease. He helps you. We sat around and told stories over coffee.” ”It was a scary experience,” says director Brest of anticipating his first meeting with De Niro. ”But he was a down-to-earth guy. It was like making a movie with my NYU Film School friends. Sometimes, I`d let the camera keep running after a scene to see if he would add any bits. He did, like in the scene where he turns around and shows the FBI man`s wallet he lifted. He`s an awesome soul. A wise man, a saint.”
”You said that? You said that?” De Niro asks, smiling and squinting, Travis Bickle-style. ”They`re nice things to say. I`d rather they say that than the other.” So what did he think of the movie, and of his co-workers?
”Basically, they`re OK. This was OK.” What about ”Jackknife,” the film he just finished shooting in Montreal with Ed Harris? ”It`s about Vietnam veterans. I liked it very much.” How about ”Union Street,” the film he`s about to start shooting with Jane Fonda in New England and Toronto? What about the veterans` groups who have expressed displeasure with Fonda`s past stands on Vietnam? ”They`ve been very nice. They just wanted to express the way they felt. I don`t think it`s going to affect the shooting.”
And what about his celebrity? Was it intimidating to the police and bounty hunters whose brains he wanted to pick? ”Yeah, a little. But once you sit down talking, that goes away.” Are you still uncomfortable answering questions about yourself? ”Yeah.” Are you difficult to live with? ”Yeah. Could be. Sometimes.” What`s the biggest misconception about you? ”You think I`m going to tell you?”
