The movie critic who wanted to fight Robert De Niro: “Before I knew it, I was nose-to-nose”
He might be a cuddly grandpa these days, but back in the day, Robert De Niro was not somebody you wanted to piss off. He’s played some seriously scary characters, from Vito Corleone in The Godfather Part II to Al Capone in The Untouchables. He put on 60lbs to play boxer Jake LaMotta in Raging Bull, most of which was muscle. Basically, fighting him was a very bad idea.
Unfortunately, nobody told Barry Norman this. Before Mark Kermode inherited the mantel, Norman was the preeminent film critic in the United Kingdom. His yearly Film… series was a highlight for any cinephile in the 1970s and 1980s, as he was responsible for educating millions of people on the deeper elements of a movie.
Across his career as both a print journalist and a TV presenter, Norman met all sorts of interesting people. This included De Niro, whom he interviewed in 1990.
“Mates of mine warned me he didn’t like doing interviews,” the critic told Wales Online. However, he’d been given the opportunity to conduct the only TV conversation with the actor ahead of the release of Goodfellas, so he wasn’t really in a position to turn this down. Norman made his way to the Savoy Hotel in London to chat with the megastar. That’s when things got ugly.
“He kept us waiting 30 minutes while his shirt came back from the laundry. Every answer he gave was monosyllabic, and after 10 minutes, I started getting annoyed,” Norman recalled, shuddering at the painful memories. “I’d heard he’d begged for the lead role in the movie Big—(which would go on to make Tom Hanks a household name)—but the producers had told him he was box-office poison and kicked him out. I only wanted his version of events, but he glowered at me and spat, ‘You had to get that in there, didn’t you?’ before storming off.”
Instead of letting the double Oscar winner have his temper tantrum, Norman decided (for some unknown reason) to chase after him. “Before I knew it, I was nose-to-nose with the ‘Raging Bull’ himself, about to go at it,” he recalled. “Thinking about it now, it wasn’t the smartest move. De Niro may have only played Jake LaMotta, but he’s still a pretty tough guy.” Luckily for both parties, cooler heads prevailed, and the two were able to do business.
This wouldn’t be the only time De Niro would cut an interview short because he didn’t like what he was being asked. In 2015, when a Radio Times journalist accused the Tribeca Film Institute (which De Niro co-founded) of being overrun by moneymen, he refused to answer. Instead, as reported by The Guardian, he said, “I’m not doing it, darling”, and left. Interestingly, this wasn’t Norman’s first heated exchange with a big star, either, as another legendary actor had previously confronted him on a train.
De Niro is notoriously private, which would explain why he takes to interviews like a duck to a lake of flaming sulphur. He can still do them, though, even when he’s almost had a fight with the person conducting it. Norman did eventually get his scoop, and you can watch it below. Alas, there is no footage of the two of them scrapping.
