Life Lessons from Robert De Niro

Welcome to Life Lessons. This week, to mark the 78th birthday of the notoriously sphinx-like Robert De Niro, we revisit some memorable quotes from his November ’93 cover story. So sit back and dust off your Italian accent—you just might learn a thing or two.

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“Directing yourself isn’t stressful—you’re just a bit uncomfortable, because [when you’re acting] you have to set your mind in a certain way, and then you have to direct everyone else.”

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“I don’t want to preach. I don’t know whether it can help or not; it depends on who sees it and what they want out of it.”

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“Movies are hard to make, and you have to work toward a common ethic and do your best. You don’t want to work with people who don’t care or who are acting out some neurotic, crazy thesis on the set. Who needs it? Life is too short.”

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“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.”

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“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 have got it.”

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“New York is more exciting, I guess, than even Paris or London is, for the moment. New York is the center of something; I don’t know what really—the center of a lot of things. With all its problems and chaos and craziness, it’s still a great place to live. I can’t see myself living anywhere else.”

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“I can get around pretty easily. People don’t expect to see me walking around.”

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