Robert De Niro’s unlikely beginnings in French cinema: “It was just a job”
Robert De Niro has long been associated with Hollywood cinema, his appearance in many classic American films establishing him as a titan of the silver screen.
Every actor has to start somewhere, though, and for De Niro, it wasn’t in his native country, but rather, his career began in France. As the home of cinema, it only seems apt that De Niro made his debut here, but he admits that the roles weren’t anything special.
Still, the 1960s marked a pretty monumental time for cinema, especially in France, and De Niro can at least say he was part of it, even if his contributions were minor. The decade saw the rise of many iconic filmmakers who formed the French New Wave, like Jean-Luc Godard, François Truffaut, and Agnès Varda, and with these cinematic pioneers came a new era for experimentation and liberation from the ‘old way’ of filmmaking.
De Niro happened to be living in Paris at this time of cinema’s incredible transformation, and this atmosphere of artistic rebellion – a cultural shift – surely rubbed off on him. So, determined to make a career out of acting, he found himself looking for jobs in the city, resulting in his first-ever role – albeit uncredited.
The actor took on the minor part of a man in a diner in Three Rooms in Manhattan, directed by the poetic realist master Marcel Carné, who had earlier made classics like Port of Shadows and Children of Paradise, and talking to Dolce Mag, the actor revealed how he ended up in this small French film, which feels like an unlikely start for a star who would soon become a New Hollywood icon.
“I was an extra for a day. It was supposed to be a coffee shop on Lexington Avenue. What I found interesting was that, as an American, I could immediately spot things that felt European, like the espresso machine in the scene – that wouldn’t have been in an American coffee shop in New York City at the time,” he explained.
It wasn’t exactly the most exhilarating introduction to cinema, with De Niro adding, “It was just a job. I was living in Paris at the time, and someone told me about it, so I went in as an extra… That was it, the film starred Maurice Ronet and Annie Girardot,” yet that experience is sometimes all you need to make some connections, get a feel for the industry, and see what a film set is actually like.
De Niro would take on another role as an extra in one of Carné’s films, The Young Wolves, three years later, clearly refusing to give up on his dream of being a star of the silver screen. From here, his career picked up momentum, and back in the United States, he landed several roles in Brian De Palma movies like Greetings and Hi, Mom!. Within a few years, he was an Oscar-nominated symbol of a new kind of American cinema, delivering flawless performances in the likes of The Godfather Part II and Taxi Driver.
Interestingly, the actor briefly returned to the arena of French cinema when Varda cast him in her film One Hundred and One Nights, but apart from that, he has kept to what he knows best – Hollywood.
