Celebrating An Icon: Robert De Niro And The Birth Of De Niro Con

Photo Credit: Scott McDermott

BY LAURA SCHREFFLER

PHOTOGRAPHY SCOTT MCDERMOTT

STYLING AUDE BRONSON-HOWARD AND MONICA RUIZ-ZIEGLER

GROOMING LYNDA EICHNER USING TREES AND FLOWERS FOR SKIN

SHOT ON LOCATION AT THE GREENWICH HOTEL, NEW YORK CITY

Photo Credit: Scott McDermott

What do you get the man who has everything? That was Jane Rosenthal’s conundrum as her Tribeca Festival (formerly, the Tribeca Film Festival) co-founder Robert De Niro’s 80th birthday loomed. And then she had an epiphany: De Niro Con.

Two full days at the tail end of this year’s festival, which runs from June 5 to 16, will be dedicated solely to the iconic actor. The best part: he has no idea what’s in store. But we do — and it’s pretty epic.

Rosenthal has pulled out all the stops in her bid to give the man of the hour a truly unforgettable surprise party, even wrangling some of Hollywood’s heaviest hitters to make appearances. Luckily, they’re all guys he calls friends. There are conversations with longtime collaborator Martin Scorsese and rapper Nas around the 50th anniversary of Mean Streets; directors Quentin Tarantino and David O. Russell, with who he worked on Jackie Brown and Silver Linings Playbook, respectively; Analyze That co-star Billy Crystal; and French artist JR, who directed De Niro in the short film Ellis, who he is collaborating with once again on the documentary The Past Goes Fast.

And those are just the confirmed speakers. No doubt, a slew of celebrities will be popping up at Bob’s party: the Tribeca Hub, located at Spring Studios, will be buzzing with big names keen to explore De Niro’s world. As you can see, Rosenthal really went all out here: instead of buying the metaphorical cake, she bought the whole damn bakery. From June 14 to 16, those sweet surprises include De Niro Is an Icon: An Exhibit & Immersive Film, an exhibition of 300 curated items from his personal archive, housed at the Harry Ransom Center in Austin, Texas — annotated scripts, costumes, research material, photographs, screenings of 13 classic films; panels, including “Dressing De Niro,” a behind-the-scenes anecdotal look at his character prep with longtime costume designer Aude Bronson-Howard and dresser Monica Ruiz-Ziegler, as well as “Drew Nieporent: Building Restaurants with De Niro,” a discussion on his impact within the restaurant industry (he owns the storied Tribeca Grill and co-founded the Nobu restaurant and hotel empire alongside Nobu Matsuhisa and Meir Teper); and the world premiere of the short film De Niro, New York, which will be presented within the Hexadome, a cutting-edge structure and format created by the Berlin Institute for Sound and Music, an immersive installation with six screens and 52 channels of sound.

And then, there’s the activations — tongue-in-cheek moments based on beloved films at the Rupert Pupkin Hall of Fan Experiences. Temporary (or real) tattoos are on offer at Max Cady’s prison parlor, a nod to Cape Fear; Jack Byrnes’ infamous polygraph test is available to take from Meet the Parents; and one can hang out in Taxi Driver Travis Bickles’ bedroom, repeating, “Are you talking to me?” or slug it out like Jake LaMotta in Raging Bull. There’s a “dress like your favorite De Niro character” day in“The Apalachin Meeting: A Gathering for Fans”; a De Niro trivia night; an improv night; a kid-friendly live concert performed by the Rock and Roll Playhouse, inspired by the film Shark Tale; and — my personal favorite — the De Niro Hero sandwich competition (which makes sense, says Rosenthal, because every bodega and sandwich shop in the tri-state area has a sammie named after the star).

“We’re paying a huge respect to him, but we’re also really trying to have some fun with it,” Rosenthal says, happily noting that she’s been able to keep most of this from the man himself, which is no mean feat considering its scope.

“I did tell him about it,” she protests. “It’s been going on for a year because of the actors’ strike — it was initially meant to happen last fall, just after he turned 80 (his birthday is August 17). I would tell him certain things, and he’d say, ‘OK, yeah, fine. Well, that’s interesting.’ And then I stopped telling him about it. I’m equally anxious and excited about him seeing all this, but I think he’ll be really happy. I mean, it’s hard to get a gift for him — especially for his 80th birthday. So, this is our way of saying ‘happy birthday.’”

She anticipates that the best part of this birthday bonanza for Bob will likely be reconnecting with Scorsese, with whom he’s worked on 10 films, starting with 1975’s The Godfather Part II, which earned him his first of two Oscars, and, most recently, on 2023’s Killers of the Flower Moon. “I think that anytime he and Marty sit down together, it is one and one equals five. To be able to look at Mean Streets, which is now 50 years old, and to see what’s going on in all their lives, will be emotional.”

But how did Nas factor into the equation? The iconic rapper seemingly has no ties to De Niro: the key word here being “seemingly.” Rosenthal explains, “Nas is coming in to speak about how this film related to his life growing up, which is a great way to see its cultural relevance 50 years later. We’ve actually been talking to Nas about doing a remake of Mean Streets; Nas and Marty have met twice already, and they’ve talked a lot about how it replicates what Nas’ life was like growing up in (the housing project) Queensbridge.” Not-so-coincidentally, 2025 also marks the 30th anniversary of the rapper’s iconic album, Illmatic, which speaks to said mean streets for an additional layer of synergy.

Photo Credit: Scott McDermott

Yes, it’s a lot to take in, but Rosenthal is confident that all will hit the mark. It’s the element of surprise, you see. After nearly six decades in the industry, nothing much manages to shock the star. But if you can manage to do so, and illicit that signature hearty laugh, see the crinkle of his eyes, it’s a win. And for her part, Rosenthal is betting on a lot of laughter — and maybe some tears. “I think he’ll love it all,” she confesses. “We’ve put together these private moments for him to look back at his career, and I think it will be very special.”

De Niro Con is her personal way of giving back to the man who has given so much of himself to TriBeCa, to New York, to the film community, and to her. Along with Craig Hatkoff, she and De Niro conceived the festival in 2002 as a direct response to the attacks on the World Trade Center, with the intention of revitalizing the economic and cultural revitalization of lower Manhattan and bringing hope through an annual celebration of film, music, and culture in the wake of tragedy.

Rosenthal explains, “After 9/11, New York needed the movies to recover. We needed to laugh. [The tragedy] affected New York, all of the country, but clearly those of us downtown really needed something to look forward to. We were able to get the film festival produced in 120 days. Bob was front and center whenever we needed him to do anything. He’s the consummate citizen — the best booster that this city could ever have.”

On his end, De Niro is self-deprecating. “I don’t really do much,” he tells me. “I’m just there, and I go to things — I just don’t have the time to look at movies and stuff, as much as I’d like to. But I am very much part of it.”

That being said, he relies entirely on Rosenthal to sort the minutiae. He shows up “on Bob time” (which is how his friends fondly refer to his chronic yet understandable lateness) and does his part. “Jane knows all the programming and the other details that I don’t. I’m there as backup in some ways, and vice versa.”

Their relationship is certainly one that has evolved over time. Rosenthal will always be eternally grateful for his trust and belief in her. After nearly 35 years of collaboration, their lives are indelibly intertwined on both personal and professional levels. They didn’t just create the festival, but also co-founded the Tribeca Film Center in 1989; she also produced 2006’s The Good Shepherd, his second directorial effort (the first was 1993’s A Bronx Tale).

“It will be 35 years in August that we’ve been working together. On a professional level, he had an idea of building the Tribeca Film Center, and he gave me an opportunity and said, ‘OK, this is what I want to do,’ and I went and did it, clearly with his support. I was here day in and day out, and he would go off and make a movie and check in. We have our rhythm of what he needs to know about and what he doesn’t want to bother with. It’s like any relationship: you continuously learn about each other. And like any relationship, we can disagree with each other. I mean, that’s how you grow. I think we’ve been able to do that successfully. I said something to him last year, like, ‘Do you know we’re going on 34 years of working together, can you believe it?’ And he said, ‘No, but we should have a party next year’ and I was like, ‘Well, what about this year?’” She laughs, and it sounds in parts exasperated and affectionate. “But that’s just Bob. He’s hard to define.”

Try, I say — and she does.

“He’s the greatest actor, period, and a great father. Personally, we’ve watched our kids grow up. I have one daughter who’s 29, and one daughter who’s 25, and [he has seven children including] his new baby. He’s over the moon about his two little kids, but even he says that you’re a different father with your first one than you are with your second, your third, and so on.”

She isn’t surprised that he had his youngest child at 79, but then, nothing really surprises her about the star. What she can say is how impressed by him she is, and how proud — particularly for challenging the system in regard to political matters. “I’m proudest of his passion and commitment to our country’s democracy, his passion for questioning what is right and wrong. Citizen Bob goes at it with as much research, knowledge, and determination as he’ll put into any role — which is even more important, because this is real life. I look at that, and I’m just so proud to know him.”

Yes, Bob, Jane is talking to you. But these glowing reviews, unlike your party, are no surprise.

Photo Credit: Scott McDermott

THE FIRST TIME I MEET BIRTHDAY BOY ROBERT DE NIRO, he disarms me as he shuffles into our shoot at The Greenwich Hotel, the boutique property he opened downtown in 2008, running a little late as per usual from an on-site business lunch. Should I be deferential, reverential, or both? Do I call him “sir”? I feel like I should, but I’m wrong.

“Call me Bob,” he says simply.

He’s quiet and polite, gamely going about the business of show business, waiting for it to be over, grazing on pretzels and endless mugs of tea that he likes so hot they need to be microwaved immediately after boiling. He only seems to light up when we shut him in a dark room with a laser pointer.

Bet you’ve never done this before, I say. “I can’t say I have,” he admits. But he’s intrigued, and he wants to get it right.

“What should I write?” he wonders, looking at the pointer quizzically. To which “Trump sucks” is suggested — only because De Niro is so vocal about his hatred of the former president. This recommendation elicits a low and familiar chuckle, and he begins writing immediately, but what he actually writes is a mystery. Here, in this fully dark Greenwich Hotel suite bedroom, I can see nothing. But my hearing isn’t an issue, and it is that voice, that distinctive rasp with a thick New York accent which the world first heard in Brian De Palma’s 1969 film, The Wedding Party, that I hear, loud and clear.

It is the voice we heard as a young Vito Corleone in The Godfather Part II, and as Jake LaMotta in Raging Bull, both of which were directed by Martin Scorsese, and both of which earned him Oscars. It’s been heard in iconic films like Taxi Driver, Goodfellas, Casino, American Hustle, Joker, Brazil, The Untouchables, Heat, The Irishman, Once Upon a Time in America, The Deer Hunter, Awakenings, and Silver Linings Playbook, and in Tribeca-produced features such as The Wizard of Lies, Thunderheart, Cape Fear, Meet the Parents, Meet the Fockers, Analyze This, Marvin’s Room, and many, many more.
The voice comes from a man who has won every major award in his lifetime that one could possibly hope to get, including those two aforementioned Oscars, the coveted Kennedy Center Honor, the Hollywood Actor Award from the Hollywood Film Festival, the Stanley Kubrick Award from the BAFTA Britannia Awards, the SAG Life Achievement Award, the Golden Globes’ Cecil B. DeMille Award, and the Presidential Medal of Freedom, which he received from then-president Barack Obama in 2016.

And today, three weeks after our April shoot, it is the voice I hear — and the face I see — over Zoom. It sounds tired, and there’s evidence to back this up in that “call me Bob” is currently lying on his couch, exhausted after long days with early call times shooting Zero Day, a six-part limited political thriller series for Netflix co-starring Angela Bassett, Dan Stevens, and Matthew Modine that will likely wrap in late June. It’s a project that’s been in play for a long time, given that both the writers’ and actors’ strikes shut down production.

Today is his day off, but he still managed to pack in a lot, including our interview, which is his final commitment this Friday. When Bob makes a commitment, he likes to be fully present, so, when his cell phone rings during our chat, he doesn’t even bother to look at the number. “I’m doing an interview right now,” he tells the disembodied voice. He pauses for a second and hangs up. “It was spam,” he says sheepishly.

We’re back to business, an explanation of his horizontal stance. “I’ve been up a long time. I didn’t shoot today, but I’m on that schedule so I got up early,” he explains. “It’s alright; it is what it is. That’s what you have to do; it’s part of the deal. If you enjoy doing it and so on, then that’s 80 percent of your motivation right there.”

Is it a deal he stills enjoys though, after all these years? De Niro does not hesitate, declaring, “Oh yeah, of course I do.” Yet, it’s still a day job. He can’t remember the last time he went to the cinema for pure personal enjoyment. But it’s not like he has an overwhelming amount of free time. In addition to shooting Zero Day, he’s busy running an empire in Tribeca Enterprises, the multi-platform media and entertainment company that encompasses the Tribeca Festival, Tribeca Studios, and production company he founded in 2003 (of which James Murdoch’s Lupa Systems purchased a major stake in 2019); the Nobu restaurant and hotel brand; and the iconic Greenwich Hotel. Oh yes, and there is that thing we like to call “acting,” too.

In addition to shooting the aforementioned Zero Day, in which he plays a former president that he likens to Biden or Barack Obama, he has two films in the can. There is Alto Knights for Barry Levinson, about a pair of Italian Americans who run two separate crime families in the mid 20th century, and the recently released Ezra, which focuses on a comedian’s life-changing cross-country journey as he attempts to make major decisions regarding the future of his autistic son.

I’m curious about how De Niro picks his projects as this stage of his career, when only the crème de la crème of scripts make it to his desk, and Ezra is the perfect example. It was personal for the actor, whose own son, 26-year-old Elliot, has autism. “It depends. If I like the script, or if I like the director but maybe the script needs work, then there will be something about it that makes sense. The script can always get better, and that might be all it needs. Ezra was something I was not sure I wanted to do for a while, but the team was so nice. The director, Tony Goldwyn, the writer, Tony Spiridakis, the whole group, really, were just all nice people trying to get this thing going, so we did. And here we are.”

Photo Credit: Scott McDermott

After Zero Day, Bob blissfully has no projects booked. Although that will likely change, it sounds like he might just really enjoy a few solid days of sleep, and quality time with his family — especially given that his seventh child was only born last April.

Not going to lie, parenting at 80 sounds exhausting. But Bob disagrees. “I’m lucky,” he declares. “I have had help doing it with the kids, with the babies, so that makes it easier, more manageable. [My newborn] is a little doll. There’s nothing like it.”

As Rosenthal noted though, a first child versus a second (or seventh in this case) is a vastly different experience. He’s the father to Drena, 52, and son Raphael, 47, whose mother is ex-wife Diahnne Abbot; twins Julian and Aaron, whose mother is model and actress Toukie Smith, are 28; he shares Elliot, 26, and Helen Grace, 12, with ex-wife Grace Hightower; and last but not least, he now has 14-month-old daughter Gia with girlfriend Tiffany Chen, a martial arts instructor he met on the set of his 2015 film, The Intern.

But for De Niro, having a newborn — at any age — is an opportunity to experience pure joy again, at the most basic and beautiful of levels. “The baby is so cute, and so innocent, and so lovable. Every little word that she says — or every little beginning of a word that she’s starting to say now — is very sweet and adorable. It’s that simple.”

Her possible first word indicates exactly what kind of girl little Gia is going to be. “My girlfriend told me that she said a word close to ‘dada’ yesterday. I wasn’t there, but she was looking for something yesterday, and she said the word.” The way that he marvels at this is incredibly sweet, and for all that I am talking to the legendary Robert De Niro, it’s lovely to see that he can easily slip into the role of typical family guy, Bob, too.

Photo Credit: Scott McDermott

What he ultimately wants, he says, is happiness for all of his kids, no matter what that looks like or what paths they follow. Most certainly, they’re part of his personal legacy, but because we’re retrospectively talking about his storied career and his 80th trip around the sun (soon to be 81st, come August) I’m curious to what the rest of said legacy looks like, in his opinion. “I don’t know,” he admits. “I would hope that the movies that I’ve done — at least certain movies — would be remembered, especially the things I’ve done with Marty Scorsese, whom I’ve been lucky to work with so many times. That’s it. I try my best whatever I do, be it my kids or my career.”

Which isn’t to say his life has been perfect: he’s human, after all. “I’ve had regrets about some things, but nothing that’s too regretful,” he says with a smile. “That’s life.”

A life he could not abide is one where he didn’t fight for what he believed in — and De Niro seems to physically awaken when discussing the upcoming election. He certainly sits up, abandoning his lethargic position to exacerbate his stance.

“I feel very strongly about several things, and one of them is getting Biden elected, because we’re going to be in big trouble if it’s not him and it turns out to be Trump; it wouldn’t be a good situation for this country,” he declares. “To do anything else other than that would be chaos and insanity. Insanity. And that’s something I’m very concerned about, because it has happened in other societies. All of a sudden, a person like Trump will come along, talk a good game, and at the end of the day, they have nothing to offer, except a lot of blah, blah, blah chatter, and people sometimes buy it because they might be tired or disillusioned by other things. But that good game, that hustle — and a hustle that’s not even a very good one, like Trump’s — is frightening if it gets any further than his wanting to be president.”

As a strong, Italian man (who’s also Irish, Dutch, French, and German, although most may not be aware of it), De Niro scoffs that he isn’t afraid of Trump’s wrath in the wake of his very public campaigns for Biden. “Look, you never know what’s going to happen. But all I know is, at my age and stage of life, I’m not going to put up with any sort of nonsense — especially from that man. He’s a vindictive, mean, small — no, mini-minded — person — and anything is possible. I always say he’s stupid; he’s a bully, but he’s a stupid bully. And it will be even more scary if he’s in power. It’ll be chaos, from one day to the next, like his own life, I guess. And he’s projecting that chaotic lifestyle onto us as Americans and onto the world. God forbid if he became president again. He’s nuts, and we don’t have time for that in a sane society.”

De Niro is digging his heels in: he will do whatever it takes to make this happen — something that he recently told President Biden during a state dinner for the Japanese Prime Minister at the White House in April. “I’ll do whatever he asks me to do, and I’ve told him that before as well,” he says staunchly. [He made good on his word mere weeks after our interview, holding a press conference about Trump’s threat to democracy outside the Manhattan courthouse where the former president’s hush money case was happening. That same day, he also sent out a mass email on behalf of the Biden-Harris administration urging folks to donate to their reelection campaign.]

Outside of the Trump-sized thorn in his side, though, De Niro is a reasonably happy guy. No life is perfect, after all, though it might seem so on the surface. Surely Instagram has taught us that. [Which, to note, De Niro does not have.]

“I don’t see how people can’t have some kind of struggle, whatever they’re doing — that’s life,” he says. “So, we take the ups with the downs, and happiness when it’s there… but don’t get too happy because there’s always something around the corner that’s going to want to dampen that. I always say, ‘Well, let’s not get too excited.’”

Is De Niro a pessimist or a realist? The answer: a little bit of both. Our conversation has turned philosophical as we discuss the meaning of happiness, its overall importance, and how happy one has to be to truly enjoy their lives. His take: 75 percent. “I don’t know people who are happier than that. I know some people look at life in a very upbeat way and who are good-natured, but even those people couldn’t claim to be fully happy. Some are content without money and don’t have any expectations. They take care of whatever they’re responsible for and that’s it. Look at the people in [blue zones]. Are they happy? They live simply in a lot of ways, and I guess you could say they are — or you could just say they’re content, and that’s OK, too.”

But what about you, Bob? “I’m doing OK,” he confides. “I have a lot going on in my life. I just want to make sure everything continues to be OK, to stay on track, and to keep on moving.”

Photo Credit: Scott McDermott