The one career goal Robert De Niro has left to achieve: “I don’t know if I’ll ever do it”
What do you do when you’ve basically accomplished everything? For ageing artists, that question must loom large. When you’ve done action and drama, comedy and romance, played the lead and the important supporter, ticked off major blockbusters and indie cinema, what comes next? After racking up the accolades and drawing out a long filmography, Robert De Niro asked himself that and came up with a plan.
For a lot of actors, the next step is to get behind the camera. That’s such a common path now, as more and more actors get started, make a name for themselves, earn the respect onscreen and then start exploring projects beyond it. Clint Eastwood and Robert Redford are two of the most famous examples of that, as they both pivoted into being directors, but there are countless examples. Jodie Foster, Bradley Cooper, Greta Gerwig, Ben Stiller—all of them started as actors and have now gone way beyond that.
All artists require a challenge; it’s a reason why the best talents we have often have a list of credits that’s so varied. De Niro is a prime example. He’s definitely best known for his more serious, dramatic roles, but especially as he got older, he continues to develop, pushing more into comedy and proving himself as an evolving figure even decades into his career.
So what’s next? Here we have a man with just about every accolade possible. He has two Oscars, for The Godfather Part II and Raging Bull, along with many other nominations that span his whole career. He’s an eight-time Bafta nominee, a ten-time Golden Globe nominee, he’s been granted a long list of honours from various boards and festivals, as well as generally being one of the most well-known names in Hollywood, so what else is there to possibly do?
In De Niro’s case, the answer is simple—go to the cinema. While other actors’ final goal might be to try something new in terms of a new genre, style or role on set, grabbing at one last achievement, De Niro’s plan is to just sit back and reflect.
“I was always thinking that I’d like to see all my movies, go over them all and see them in the order I made them and just sort of see everything that I’ve done one last time in my life,” he said.
When I first read it, I thought it sounded kind of odd. Surely the actor has seen all of these films and, in the case of the big ones, has seen them many, many times. But the more I think about it, the more it feels like a really beautiful finale.
It’s not that the actor is hungry for more or feels unsettled that there’s something he hasn’t done, but the act of merely reflecting on all his work and tracing back through the years upon years he’s worked this acting thing, celebrating all the projects he’s been a part of, it feels like a really apt way to close it out.
Given that he’s starred in over 135 films, some of them being pretty long, it’s no easy undertaking, though. That would be a long slog in the cinema and despite being the one that came up with the idea, the man himself isn’t sure if he can commit, remarking, “I don’t know if I’ll ever do it, but, I used to think, I’d like to do it”.
