Robert De Nirois the latest A-lister to open up with his own thoughts about the state of film these days. On the heels of his longtime buddy andThe IrishmandirectorMartin Scorsesemaking waves forcomments about the Marvel Cinematic Universe, De Niro — who stars inThe Irishman— took the stage to make his own spicy comments at the London Film Festival.
Following a showing ofThe Irishmanon Friday at the festival, De Niro sat down for a Q&A. According toScreen Daily, the conversation turned toThe Irishman’s use of digital de-aging technology and whether it affected De Niro’s performance while filming. TheIrishmanstar’s reply was a real humdinger:
The technological stuff can only go so far. It’s not going to change other things. If it does to such a point it becomes something that is not what a person is, what a human is. It can be another type of entertainment, like comic strip things, Marvel. The comic book character-type things, cartoony stuff.
Look, I’m not going to go toe-to-toe with the man who can say he’s played both a taxi driver and a dirty grandpa in his decades-long career, but, uh, De Niro’s definitely seen how bonkers he looks digitally de-aged, right? In case you need to refresh your memory, just look at the above photo, where De Niro’sIrishmancharacter, Frank Sheeran, is somewhere in his late 20s/early 30s. Our guy looks — yes, I’m gonna say it — cartoony. It’s truly wild to claim too much technology can affect a film to the point it becomes another, more cartoony type of entertainment when that photo is evidence of what can happen when you digitally de-age De Niro.
TheIrishmanstar managed to redeem himself by offering up some #VeryGood opinions about actors whose work he currently and sincerely admires. Among the actors he name-checked wereAmerican Hustleco-starChristian Bale,Irishmanco-starStephen Graham,Jokerco-starJoaquin Phoenix, andCate Blanchett. My guy!
For more on Joker, which is currently in theaters, check outour ending explainer.The Irishmanwill have ashort theatrical runbeginning November 1 before officially debuting on November 29.
