Robert De Niro (Actor)

"As an actor who's starting out, you can't say, 'Hey, I'm too good for this.' You gotta do it, because people see you, your name gets around, and it has a cumulative effect. Auditions are like a gamble. Most likely you won't get the part, but if you don't go, you'll never know if you could've got it. I remember when I was in 'Mean Streets,' I ran into Harvey Keitel in the Village - we were friends - and he'd already been cast in the movie as Charlie. I had done a couple of leads in movies before so I said, 'Well, career wise, I should be playing Charlie.' I didn't say it like a wiseass, I was saying it sincerely, but not in a way that was threatening to him. Then Harvey said, 'You know who you should play? Johnny Boy.' And that clicked. I played Johnny. Now I say to people, 'If you get a part, do it.'" - De Niro to Paul Mathur in Interview magazine, November 1993

"I think Hollywood has a class system. The actors are like the inmates, but the truth is they're running the asylum. You've got to look at the whole studio structure. There's these guys. We call them suits. They have the power to OK a film. They're like your parents, going, 'We have the money.' But at the same time they say to us actors, 'We love you. We can't do without you.' You know, I've been around a long time. I've seen the suits run the asylum. I think I can do it as good or even better. Let me try it. That's why I have TriBeCa." - De Niro in Chicago Sun-Times, Jan. 8, 1998

Angelina Jolie on what make De Niro a great actor: "I think he likes to study people. And he doesn't like to be studied." - from GQ magazine, January 2007

Awarded an honorary doctorate from New York University in 1996.

Comparing himself to Marlon Brando: "Early Brando seemed to romanticize, but it's really the poetry of the whole being. I don't know about my poetry, but you look at Brando and you're interested. He has a sense of truth in all his instincts and in order to get that truth, it's important not to indicate. People don't indicate when they tell you about their traumas. They don't try to tell you their feelings, they try to hide them. It's important to keep it fresh and simple." - De Niro quoted in Blitz, c. 1988

De Niro received the Outstanding Achievement Award from the Congress of Racial Equality in 1993.

De Niro, Robin Williams and Francis Ford Coppola own the San Francisco restaurant Rubicon. De Niro is also one of the owner-investors, along with Bob and Harvey Weinstein, executive producers of "Cop Land" and "Jackie Brown" (both 1997), actor Christopher Walken and director Ridley Scott, of the Los Angeles restaurant Ago, serving New York-style Italian cuisine.

For many years, De Niro paid child support to a former girlfriend, Helena Lissandrello, believing he was the father of her daughter. During a dispute over financial matters, a DNA test proved De Niro was not the child's father.

Honored with France's Commander of Arts and Letters decoration (from Minister of Culture Jack Lang), De Niro later threatened to return the medal when French authorities questioned him about his alleged involvement with prostitutes. "I love Paris and I love the French, but the judicial system there with the judges having so much power is deplorable. You're guilty until you're proven innocent. This particular judge seemed to be carrying out some sort of witch-hunt. Maybe he thought he was in a movie." - De Niro quoted in The Guardian, Nov. 13, 1998

In 1977, De Niro told Time magazine: "After I give an interview I spend all my time trying to explain what I meant. After my first movies I gave interviews, then I thought what's so important about where I went to school and hobbies? What does any of that have to do with acting, with my own head? Nothing."

In 2003, De Niro was diagnosed with prostate cancer.

In December 2001, De Niro, along with business partner Jane Rosenthal announced the inaugural Tribeca Film Festival to be held in lower Manhattan in May 2002.

In February 1998, during a film shoot in France, he was taken in for questioning by French police for nine hours and was then questioned by a magistrate over a prostitution ring. De Niro denied any involvement, saying that he had never paid for sex, "...and even if I had, it wouldn't have been a crime."