With an unprecedented career in Hollywood and versatile acting skills, legendary actor Robert De Niro (Robert Anthony De Niro) has touched the world through his powerful performances for the last 55 years and has remained a people’s man throughout his life.
Born and brought up in Greenwich Village, Manhattan, De Niro is known for playing offbeat, complex roles in Hollywood. He has proved his genius through the way he portrays his characters. It’s a given that an actor has to go through rigorous change when trying to encapsulate the soul of a role, and that can mean putting their body, mind and sometimes even tongue through a tough process to fit the requirements of the script.
However, such challenges never stopped a perfectionist like Robert from accomplishing highly appreciated roles. It’s not a surprise that his performances only improved with each film he signed.
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Experimenting across a range of incredible roles including that of gangsters and fallen icons and lighter roles towards the later years of his glorious career, De Niro never failed to surprise his audience.
He has always been a stage prodigy, which was quite evident through his stage debut ‘The Wizard of Oz’ at the age of 10. When he became fixated on cinema, he decided to drop out of high school at 16. A bold decision indeed. After struggling during the initial years of his career, De Niro realized his true potential as an actor only when he collaborated with the iconic director Martin Scorsese. This alliance was just the onset of a grand cinematic era.
His mind-blowing performance in ‘The Godfather II’ earned him his first Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. As Vito Corleone, young De Niro was successful in capturing the strange, epic and menacing transformation of a man to a feared mafia don in this cult revenge story.
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His collaboration with Scorsese is marked with golden ink on the screens. Films such as ‘Taxi Driver’, ‘Mean Streets’, ‘Raging Bull’, ‘The King of Comedy’, ‘Goodfellas’ etc. are the result of this successful partnership. Surprisingly, all these movies are accredited as his best works.
De Niro’s performance in ‘Raging Bull’ earned him his second Oscar, and he was then cited amongst the most powerful actors of all times.
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On one hand, he made us witness his darker side, where on the other hand, his light comic roles such as the one in ‘The King of Comedy’ have remained phenomenal. It displays De Niro’s complex character as Rupert Pupkin, a lunatic, crazy mediocre who can do anything to get on television just for a while. De Niro and Scorsese’s film ‘Taxi Driver’ is his most iconic role till date. It takes us to the then dangerous and decaying city of New York. It is yet another shade of a male psyche struck with insomnia. De Niro playing a man dealing with the traumas of war is riveting and an absolute tour-de-force performance.
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One film worth mentioning here is ‘Deer Hunter’, which earned him critical accolades. In the recent times, De Niro has kept himself busy doing films with modern day actresses such as Jennifer Lawrence and Emily Blunt. Lately, he starred in ‘Silver Linings Playbook’, ‘Joy’ and ‘The Intern’, where his roles were more on the lighter side but impactful nonetheless.
De Niro’s work is exceptional which he executes with precision, always. His dedication to giving his best has kept him growing as a performer. To us, he will always remain an irreplaceable gem in the film industry.