Robert De Niro Tribeca Film Festival - H 2013
Getty ImagesRobert De Niro isn’t exactly known for being a lively interviewee, but up until now, he hasn’t shown his angry side to the media world.
A British journalist, however, seemingly hit the wrong buttons while talking to De Niro during his promotional tour for The Intern.
After being asked how he resists the temptation to go into “autopilot” mode on set, combined with a comment about New York’s Tribeca district having been taken over by bankers, the Taxi Driver star — who already appeared “depressed,” according to Radio Times reporter Emma Brockes — asked that she pause her tape recorder.
“He then pops up out of his chair, starts pacing madly and says he’s cutting short the interview because of ‘negative interference’ of what I just said,” wrote Brockes.
When he was asked to be more specific about the source of this “negative inference,” De Niro reportedly said: “All the way through. Negative inference the whole way through, and I’m not doing it, darling. You’re probably not even aware that you’re doing it, the negative inference.”
Earlier in the press junket, Brockes claimed that De Niro’s The Intern co-star Anne Hathaway started crying at a roundtable discussion when describing the honor of working with De Niro, to which he responded by looking “baffled and vaguely appalled.”
The Intern, written and directed by Nancy Meyers, features De Niro as the 70-year-old apprentice to Hathaway’s online-fashion-retailer CEO. Warner Bros. is releasing the movie in U.S. theaters on Friday.
