The “perfect” movie moment that surprised Robert De Niro
The acting career of Robert De Niro is unlike any other of his contemporary performers. Quite simply, De Niro is one of the all-time greats in the film industry and has delivered spellbinding performance after spellbinding performance, always serving up emotional nuance and dedication to his craft.
De Niro’s first big performance arrived in Martin Scorsese’s 1973 crime film Mean Streets, marking the first of many times the actor and director would work together. De Niro then went on to star in some of the greatest films of all time, including The Godfather Part II, Scorsese’s Taxi Driver, Raging Bull and Goodfellas and Quentin Tarantino’s Jackie Brown.
However, just because De Niro is one of the most experienced actors in the game doesn’t mean that his profession won’t throw up a surprise or two, whether from a co-star or a bit of excellent direction. In an interview with Playboy, De Niro once explained the pleasures of being surprised on set.
“Sometimes, and that’s a good feeling,” the acting icon noted. “When you get that, you’ve got to really ride with it. Sometimes, when I do something that I think is really funny, I break up and start laughing because it feels so good.” It’s interesting to hear De Niro admit that he’s liable to burst out into a fit of laughter, even in the middle of a serious take.
He also claimed that when those character breaks occur, he can sometimes get annoyed with himself for ruining a given taken. “Then I get so mad at myself for breaking up because the rhythm felt so right—I was right there—and if I’d held out just a little longer and not broken up, I wouldn’t have ruined the take,” he noted.
However, on the other hand, sometimes a slip-up was of benefit to De Niro on set, and he explained that it occurred in the 1988 road action buddy movie Midnight Run. “That happened during Midnight Run, between me and Charles Grodin,” De Niro added, “I knew it was perfect, just perfect.”
The film was directed by Martin Brest and saw the likes of Yaphet Kotto, John Ashton, and Philip Baker Hall support De Niro and Grodin. De Niro plays a bounty hunter who is hired by a bail bondsman to track down an accountant, played by Grodin, who has recently embezzled $15million out of a notorious crime boss.
Midnight Run was one of those moments that De Niro clearly cherishes. Check out the trailer below.
