BETWEEN US
Robert Love EDITOR IN CHIEF
Yeah, He’s Talking to Us
Why do we keep putting De Niro on our cover? Because he inspires us
De Niro in 2007 and—with Michael Douglas, Kevin Kline and Freeman—in 2013.
I MET Robert De Niro at a photo shoot for the cover of our October/November 2013 issue. It was my first issue as editor in chief of this magazine, and thinking back, I might have been a bit overexcited. De Niro was the first of the four stars on that cover to arrive. He strolled into the bustling studio like a cool breeze, in jeans and a sweater, newspaper folded under one arm. I went up and introduced myself. De Niro looked me up and down, then deadpanned, “Nah, you look too young.”
“You too,” I said, and he broke into a smile. But that easy amiability—so unlike many of his signature roles—is not all there is to like about Robert De Niro. At AARP, we’ve been admirers since 1978, when this magazine—then called Modern Maturity—used De Niro’s photo to illustrate an Oscars quiz. He wasn’t even old enough to be a member at the time, but his chilling performances in films like Mean Streets and Taxi Driver had already marked him as one of the greatest actors of our lifetimes. And maybe of all time. His first AARP The Magazine cover came out in January 2007, when we honored him for his work reviving his Lower Manhattan neighborhood after the 9/11 attacks. Tribeca’s namesake film festival is still going strong, thanks in large part to De Niro’s love of his neighborhood and his hometown.
A 2013 shot
In 2010, AARP honored De Niro, then 66, with a Movies for Grownups Award for career achievement—which, in light of the work he has done in the years since, may have been, well, premature. He jokingly acknowledged as much during the ceremony: “What are they going to give me 40 years from now? The ‘He Lived Too Long Award’?”
Hardly. I’m delighted to report that De Niro—now 80 and gracing our cover for the third time—is nowhere near ready to call it a career. With an acclaimed (and Movies for Grownups award–winning) performance in Killers of the Flower Moon and a new baby daughter, his seventh child, the actor seems focused on the here and now, and on what’s next for him. When our reporter, Andrew Corsello, sat down with the famously reticent actor, he knew that getting De Niro to open up would be a challenge. But Corsello found a way. De Niro, this iconic tough guy—he once belonged to a Little Italy street gang long enough to earn the nickname “Bobby Milk,” due to his pale complexion—teared up when talking about fatherhood. “It’s wondrous,” he confided.
One thing we learned while researching De Niro’s long career was just how many of his most famous lines were improvised—including, of course, the “You talkin’ to me?” monologue from Taxi Driver. It speaks to the actor’s dedication to his film projects, his ability to live and work in the moment, and the value of improvisation in any kind of creative life.
A teachable moment? Maybe. In a large sense, we’re all just making it up as we go along.
