The Tribeca Film Festival’s ode to its two-time Oscar winner and co-founder Robert De Niro – De Niro Con – was celebrated on Friday evening with the screening of silver linings Playbook with filmmaker David O. Russell and Ben Stiller, who openly share their experiences of working with the actor trained by Stella Adler. Or like Stiller, who worked with De Niro in the Meet the parents The franchise gave rise to “De Niro-ism.”
When it came to taming the hot, boiling emotions in a dramatic scene in which Tiffany Maxwell (Jennifer Lawrence) takes on De Niro’s Pat Sr. (the father of Bradley Cooper’s Pat) after he accuses her of bringing bad luck to his prized football team, the Philadelphia Eagles, Russell says the Goodfellas The actor arrived on set already as an angry bull.
“I’ll never forget the day of the big explosion when it was Jennifer versus Bob and Bradley was in the middle of it. It was a big scene and I blocked it because Bob was unexpectedly late, which is not his style. So I started shooting that scene because everyone was there. Bob came in and carried the energy of the scene: He was screaming at me! He scared me!” Russell said.
“He said, ‘Hey, this is a serious scene! This is a seven-page scene! No kidding!’ I said, ‘Jesus, Bob, I’m just blocking the scene.’ He was preparing himself to be so angry. That was Wild Bull Level.”
Stiller also had an interlude: “When I first shot a scene with Bob in Meet the parents, it was the first time my character met him and he did something and I was so nervous and he did this little ‘De Niro-ish’ thing and I laughed in his face, which is the last thing in the world I wanted to do in front of Robert De Niro for a scene I’m doing with him. But he has that effect on people – because he’s Robert De Niro.”
silver linings Playbook follows Pat Solatano as he tries to get his life back on track after a stint in a mental institution. His ultimate goal is to get back together with his wife. He ends up living with his parents (De Niro, Jacki Weaver), but meets Tiffany, who offers to help him get back together with his wife if he does something very important for her in return. The film won an Academy Award for Best Actress for Lawrence and also a nomination for Best Picture, a nomination for Directing for Russell, and a nomination for Supporting Actor for De Niro among its eight total nominations.
Russell was given the novel by Matthew Quick by the late Sydney Pollack, as he felt the filmmaker had what it took to deliver both the comedy and seriousness required for the material. Cooper, who had just lost his father at the time, was drawn to the material and found a father on set in De Niro, while Lawrence, who had not even been in Hunger Games and yet he impressed during the unbiased and intense recorded audition.
Russell continued to talk about working with De Niro: “He went through the script with us very meticulously. He had us go through the entire script with the cast. There were things he asked about, things he wanted to change and correct. He learned all the dialogue by heart.”
The secret of the chemistry, according to the five-time Oscar-nominated filmmaker, was that “you just wanted people to stop acting. So you went for non-acting, you wanted to ‘stop the bullshit’ and be authentic.”