When an Actor Is Too Good at His Job - Robert De Niro

the leader of a crime family a boxer and a professional Thief hunted down by alucino few actors can match the near 60-year film career Robert dairo had whose career Rivals that of the most legendary actors his streak in the 70s marked one of the greatest breakthrough decades in film history featuring roles most actors would dream of securing even once in their lifetime recently dairo has taken to lighter roles but no one could judge him too harshly after Decades of intense performances like Marlin Brando before him dairo immersed himself deep in method acting truly embodying the

character on and off screen he drove taxis for 15-hour shifts paid to get his teeth ruined and even gained 60 lbs or 27 kg for his roles so will'll be exploring his entire career focusing on his three most impactful decades and delving into all the moments where he truly lost himself in roles with a portfolio of over 100 films we aim to highlight the peaks of J's career without overlooking the occasional lows born of two painters in New York City in 1943 with with his father being Irish Italian dairo discovered his passion for acting at

the age of 10 after portraying the Cowardly Lion in a School production of Wizard of Oz He attended the high school of music and arts in the 9th grade and then moved from school to school before dropping out at 16 to pursue his love for Cinema he studied under Stella Adler from ages 18 to 21 learning the stanislowski system art of experiencing Adler also taught Marlon brand who was most influential under Nero's approach to acting the Nero's early career in the mid to late 60s consisted of of minor film roles until he landed his first

significant role in Brian depalma's greetings in 1968 where he played one of the three men dodging the Vietnam draft the film was well received marking the beginning of Dao's collaborations with dealma he continued the decade with a role in Sam song and later reunited with dealma in the wedding party he started the 70s by appearing in bloody mama and again with dealma in high mom a sequel to greetings his performances so far particularly the DePalma comedies hinted at his knack for portraying complex off beak characters however 1973 was a pivotal year for dairo he started

in Bang the Drum Slowly portraying a baseball player with hodkin's disease a role that garnered him a lot of Praise but it was Mean Streets directed by Martin Scorsese that truly cemented his status in the film industry as Johnny Boy a reckless young criminal dairo showcased his profound ability to embody deeply flawed characters earning him comparisons to some of Dustin Hoffman's earlier performances everybody and I never paid him back so I can't borrow no money from nobody no more right this film kicked off one of Cinema's most iconic Partnerships with scorsi marking the beginning of

a new era for dairo whose preparation for the role involved isolating himself to better portray his character's Outsider status the film was a critical success setting the stage for dairo to really take things up a notch with his next film but here at film stack we're always trying to take it up a notch and one way we've been able to do that is by using Opera Opera is a free browser that is packed with features that ensure I have a safe and secure browsing experience while also increasing my productivity I want to highlight just a

few of the features that make me love using Opera Opera has an amazing browser AI called ARA that helps us here at film stack make our videos better when doing research for this video Arya helped us find some of Dao's method acting stories we never heard of before it also helped us fact check the information we included in our script Arya is easily accessible from the sidebar and can give you clear answers to your questions instantly it can help compose content of different types style and length and it also allows you to highlight any text

to get a brief description explore the topic more or provide a translation another great feature is Opera's tab Islands as a YouTuber I have so many tabs open almost all the time because I'm finding Clips or images or just doing research in general and Opera's tab Island help me stay organized by grouping tabs based on their context and oh my let's talk about Opera's workspaces feature I'm not just a YouTuber I also have a full-time job that requires me to use my browser constantly and sometimes I just want to relax and browse things when I'm

at home Opera's workspaces allow me to stay organized when I need to focus on YouTube I switch to my YouTube workspace when I'm working I'll switch my workspace again and this is just a short list of all the features they also have a built-in ad blocker a VPN and so much more and the best part is that you can get all these features by downloading Opera for free just click the link in the description Dao's role as the young veto corleon in Godfather Part Two is often hailed as one of the greatest performances in film

initially auditioning for a minor role in the first film dairo caught Francis Ford cop's attention with his work in mean streets but the craziest part was that his role as VTO corleon only had 17 words in English with the rest being in Italian In the Sicilian dialect to prepare dairo spent months in Sicily immersed in language courses and absorbing local behaviors to perfect his portrayal his transformation was so complete that it mirrored Marlin Brando's iconic portrayal seamlessly convincing audiences that they were indeed the same character this Stellar performance earned AO and Oscar for supporting actor

and along with the film's other accolades cemented it as one of the greatest sequels ever made but in 1976 dairo took method acting to the extreme teaming up with Scorsese again for taxi driver where he played Travis ble a mentally unstable Vietnam War veteran who is now in New York City cab driver so how did he prepare by driving a taxi of course dairo actually drove a taxi for 15-hour shifts for a whole month only being recognized once despite recently winning an Oscar and his dedication didn't stop in New York City while filming 1900 in

Italy he would fly back to drive cabs during production breaks he even recorded conversations at a US Army base to master a Midwestern accent and lost 35 lbs on top of all of this he extensively studied mental illnesses listened to the Diaries of criminal Arthur breamer on repeat studied the behavior of taxi drivers took firearm training and apparently stayed in character throughout production all of this culminated in one of the best performances in some of the most iconic lines in film like the whole mirror monologue where he improvised the lines you talking to me for

his efforts he received an Oscar nomination and the film was a hit all across the board making it two for two for the dairo scores collabs 1976 was a busy year for dairo besides taxi driver he started in the Italian epic 1900 as a wealthy landowner and in The Last Tycoon playing a young film producer though 1900 was well received both films struggled at the box office Deniro's method acting continued in The Last Tycoon with reports of him rehearsing even on and being very meticulous in how he portrayed his character and the following year he

had his third collab with Scorsese New York New York where he played a saxophonist alongside Liza Manelli for the role dairo spent 3 months learning to play the saxophone even though it was eventually overdubbed but did the scorsi dairo duo go three for three with this film no it didn't farewell with critics or at the box office with some criticism going towards dairo for his character being very underdeveloped he still got a Golden Globe nomination for it though unfortunately Scorsese had a worse reaction to the criticism falling into depression and worsening his drug addiction he

really needed some convincing to get him back into film making but more on this later but dairo ended the 1970s on a high note with Michael chimino the deer hunter in the film dairo portrays one of the three working-class friends who enlist in the Vietnam War starring alongside Christopher Watkin John kazal and John Savage dairo has described this role as the most physically exhausting of his career with the shoot going both over budget and over schedule often due to Chino's insistence on Multi multiple retakes in one notably demanding scene dairo and Savage had to fall

30 ft from a helicopter into a river performing The Stunt themselves under Cho's Direction who required 15 takes over 2 days to capture the perfect shot dairo as always took preparation for the role very seriously he spent a lot of time speaking with steel workers to better understand his character and to make things feel more real and heighten the anxiety on set dairo suggested using live cartridges in the revolver for the Russian Roulette scene apparently kazal was always checking the weapon between takes but this seems a bit too over the top and unnecessary probably just

PR to Hype the movie up the film ended up being very successful despite its controversial subject matter dairo nominated for best actor even skipped out on the Oscars because he was anxious that the film's controversy would cause problems at the ceremony the film went on to win five Oscars including best picture Robert dairo kicked off the 80s with what many considered to be his alltime best performance in Raging Bull marking his fourth collaboration with Martin scorsi this passion Pro project of his was challenging to get off the ground dairo who was inspired after reading the

autobiography of Jake lamada the Italian-American boxer he portrays was frequently seen with the book on the set of New York New York likely nudging Scorsese towards the project following the commercial flop of New York New York and scorsese's hospitalization after a near overdose dairo visited him and persuaded him to tackle raging bolt rather than moving to Europe to make smaller films the duo brought their aame dairo trained with the Rio lamada for months even entering Brooklyn boxing matches to authentically capture the boxer's gritty Essence he also lived with Joe pesi who played his brother in

the film to foster a genuine sense of Brotherhood however the most extreme commitment dairo made for this role was gaining 60 lbs to portray the older lamada setting a record at the time he spent months in Europe eating lots of pasta and milkshakes scaring Scorsese when he finally showed up to set with his new weight and although not a commercial hit the film was a critical success cementing Scorsese as one of the era's most significant filmmakers a much needed boo and confidence and in hero won the best actor Oscar for his intense and near-perfect performance

wor about the weight you worried about the weight well we arguing for I just said the wait he then had to lose as much weight as possible to start in 1981's True Confessions where he played a priest whose brother was investigating a murder the film received fairly good reviews but was a much Tamer performance than his last it wasn't long before he teamed up with Scorsese for the fifth time in 1982 is the king of comedy where he played Rupert pupkin an aspiring comedian with stalker t Tendencies this role marked a significant departure for dairo

and he branched out from his typical characters more often this decade it even became scorsese's favorite dairo performance I can take care of that right away just tell me the ones you don't like and no problem actually that's a great help this is great to prepare for the role of the comedian dairo spent months studying Richard Belzer and other comedians standup acts to capture the Rhythm and timing however to delve into the stalker side of his character he engaged in Reverse stalking by approaching his own stalkers asking them questions and even meeting with one of

his long long time stalkers although both the film and Deniro's performance were well received it bombs spectacularly at the box office perhaps due to its Bleak and cynical tone which may have been too much for audiences at the time Dao's box office struggles continued with his next film in 1984 serger Leon's Jewish gangster epic Once Upon a Time in America dairo delivered one of the standout performances but there wasn't much drama behind the scenes except for his unsuccessful request for a private meeting with the renowned Crime Boss Meer Lansky the film flopped because its original

cut which was a by critics and ran over 4 hours was drastically condensed to 2 hours and 19 minutes for us theaters a version that critics hated the remainer of the decade saw inconsistent uses of his method acting there were some seemingly pointless requests such as having business cards made for his character in 1984 is falling in love cards that never even appeared on film or in 1987's The Untouchables where he reunited with the Palma to play Al Capone and even had Capone's original tailor recreate the gangster suits and silk underwear his intense method acting

started to irritate others an example being in 1985 during the filming of Terry gillams Brazil initially everyone was excited to have dairo on board but his obsession with preparing for roles in meticulously researching every detail frustrated gilam so much so that he reportedly wanted to strangle him dairo also often forgot his lines needing 25 to 30 takes to get a scene right whereas most other actors only needed two to three tensions also escalated during the filming of 1987's Angel Heart which sparked a feud between dairo and Mickey roor because dairo refused to talk to roor

on set believing it would enhance their scenes but RoR took it personally overall despite becoming an established lead actor almost every film dairo appeared in during this decade flopped at the box office the only two major hits came towards the end with The Untouchables and midnight run where he played a bounty hunter with a performance that is beloved by many he experimented much more this decade with roles ranging from boxers to aspiring comedians to heating Engineers to 18th century mercenaries despite the variety almost all films reviewed well with his performance often being Central to the

praise however some of his most iconic performances were yet to come in the following decade Good Fellas the sixth collaboration between dairo and scorsi and one of our favorite films here at film stack there's not much we can say that hasn't already been said about the film but upon rewatching it recently I just loved every scene the film follows the true story of Henry Hill a young gangster who climbs the ranks of a mafia family with the help of Jimmy Conway played by dairo for this role dairo took preparation to yet another level he would

call the real Henry Hill 7 to eight times a day inquiring about how the real Jimmy Jimmy Burke conducted himself initially it was about General behavioral things to get his character right but then it became incredibly specific like how the real Jimmy walked how he held his cigarette and even how he applied his ketchup the end result was a very lovable and charismatic performance although honestly I probably wouldn't have noticed if he applied his ketchup the wrong way the Nero didn't receive an Oscar nomination but his co-star Joe peshi who delivered the most memorable performance

won an Oscar critics adored the film but it's surprising to see that it only did good enough at the box office that same year dairo starred alongside Robin Williams and Awakenings playing a patient who received a controversial cure for entis lethargica and experiences an Awakening both leads prepared by spending time with the neurologist Oliver Sachs upon whom the story is based on the film did well enough and earned dairo his first Oscar nomination in 10 years but the wait for his next nomination wouldn't be as long in 1991 dairo portrayed a film director in Guilty

by suspicion which flopped and also played a smaller role as a fire inspector in Backdraft before reuniting with Scorsese for their seventh collaboration in Cape Fear here he played Max Katy a psychotic rapist seeking Vengeance on his attorney who withheld evidence that could have acquitted him to physically prepare dairo bulked up got tattoos with vegetable die and paid a dentist $5,000 to degrade his teeth for the role which cost him $20,000 to restore after filming he immersed himself in the psychology of sexual predators and even recorded local dialects in southern towns to perfect his character's

accent is a bird apparently you go everywhere you want with whomever that much Freedom could maybe get a fell into trouble the Nero's chilling performance helped make Kate fear the Duo's most successful film by a large margin earning him another Oscar nomination but this was Deniro's last case of extreme commitment to a role he still continued to prepare thoroughly for his Parts though the roles became Tamer and he was often typ cast with Studios capitalizing on his Fame he had a notable appearance alongside Bill Murray in 1993's mad dog and Glory despite his box office

failure in This Boy's Life he started with Leonardo DiCaprio who would later replace him to become scorsese's regular collaborator 1993 also marked Dao's directorial debut With A Bronx Tale a Coming of Age Mafia film where surprisingly he did not play one of the gangsters in the film while it had an okay box office performance critics praised Deniro's Direction he tackled the role of Frankenstein in 1994 before starring in two iconic films in 1995 casino and heat in Casino his eighth film Scorsese dairo played Sam Ace Rothstein a casino boss with mob connections a cool fact

about the film is that much of the dialogue between him and peshi was improvised based only on cues on how to start and end their conversation the film performed well at the box office though it didn't receive as glowing reviews As Good Fellas but dairo kept his method acting up for the film even catching an earful from Don Rickles for forgetting his lines learn the thing you got to pop out trailer s stud in Michael man's heat dairo and alpacino were on screen together for the first time despite both appearing in The Godfather Part Two

dairo played Neil mcau a master Thief hunted by a detective played by Pacino man had dairo and the other actors meet career criminals to prepare for their roles the film was a huge hit with dairo at his coolest man at his best and Pacino delivering one of his best lines many regard 1995 as the last great year of Dao's career he remained prolific starring in two to three films annually his most notable roles for the remainder of the decade included reuniting with the Caprio in Marvin's Room playing an investigator in Copland and appearing in Tarantino's

Jackie Brown he also starred in the political satire Wag the Dog and played a mercenary in Ronin and while he ventured into comedy and safer Thrillers he continued to land tough guy in Mafia roles like in 1999s analyzed this where he played a mob boss in therapy a plot that seems a little familiar although the film was successful and earned him a Golden Globe nomination dairo would soon move towards cheap sequels and cash grab roles with his worst decade coming up next if you think we're exaggerating how much Dao's career declined this decade just look

at what he opened the Millennium with the Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle a film he admittedly did just for the money however not everything was terrible that decade that same year he started Meet the Parents as Ben Stiller's girlfriend's father a role in a classic 2000s comedy where dairo avoided Stiller on set to mimic the distance between their characters the film was a hit all around becoming his highest grossing film to that point the following year he appeared in Marlin Brando's final film The Score which received positive reviews despite all the problems brandle caused on

set but almost everything else this decade was brutal sharktale had its moments and could be considered a Scorsese Dao collaboration and 2007 Stardust was good although receiving midbox office numbers yet everything else was torn apart by critics Analyze That A Bad sequel to analyze this meet the fuers an okay sequel to meet the parents whatever godsend was and the disappointing reunion with alpacino in Righteous Kill which even they later admitted to not being proud of even his second attempt at directing with 2006's the Good Shepherd a spy film starring Matt Damon did not go well

although the paychecks kept coming his career was falling apart however he was going to experience a late career Resurgence in the following decade well sort of after the disastrous decade he just endured if you told me his 2010s would include Limitless Silver Linings Playbook American Hustle the intern the Irish man and Joker I'd have called it one of the best recent actor comebacks yet only two of those roles were leads and two were very minor the truth is the decade was again filled with mediocrity amidst all those hits in 2012 he start in Silver lighting's

Playbook playing the father whose son moves back in with them after being released from a psychiatric hospital his performance earn him a Best Supporting Actor nomination his first Oscar nod in 21 years but he also did little fuers New Year's Eve and red lights before getting there in 2013 he had a very memorable cameo in American Hustle but somehow he also starred in five films that seem Year all critic flops with two doing well enough at the box office the intern was a fun watch but then he followed it up a year later with dirty

Grandpa which a Critic described as not just the worst movie dairo has ever been in but it may be the worst movie anyone has ever been in at this point in his career behind the scenes stories are few and far between the only notable tidbit I could find is that for this film's poster he lifted Zack Efron on his back without any help but that late career Resurgence I mentioned began in 2017 with the TV film The Wizard Of Lies where he plays Bernie maid off the Mastermind behind the largest known Ponzi scheme the film

received pretty good reviews and his performance earned him Golden Globe and Emmy nominations in 2019 we finally saw his ninth feature film collaboration with scorsi the Irish Man starring alongside pesi and Pacino the film revolves around the mafia's dealings with Teamster Jimmy haa it was a very expensive Netflix film especially because of the daging technology used on the leads which kind of worked except that in some of the younger dairo scenes you can clearly tell it's an older man acting despite those issues the film was a major hit with critics and earned airo and Oscar

nomination as a producer that same year he had a small supporting role in Joker being in the film's most memorable scene and in 2023 dairo started his 10th Scorsese collaboration killers of the flower moon this time alongside scorsese's other frequent collaborator DiCaprio the film set during the 1920s oage murders in Oklahoma and based on a true story and book showcased Deniro's best performance in decades it's so simple the front is the front the back is the back earning him another Oscar nom a for supporting role it really makes you wonder how many great performances we

missed out on if he had taken his career more seriously in the last two decades and tried as hard as he did here but going all out for a role is very demanding you can't drive a taxi for months gain 60 lb learn every detail to become the character and stalk your stalkers for every role especially not at the age of 80 but no one is asking him to it's like what Lawrence Olivier said to Dustin Hoffman about his method acting Antics why don't you try acting the the best he can do at this age

is to try like he did in killers of the flower Moon and what he has been doing these last few years it'll be interesting to see where his career goes from here whether he'll continue to try or go back to taking it easy but the man has definitely earned a break either way so there you have it Robert Deniro's legendary career and all his most dedicated moments do you think he had the best film career share your thoughts below if you enjoyed the video drop a like And subscribe and check out our patreon for some

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