-They love you. I love you. Welcome back to the show.
You were actually on my very first "Tonight Show."
-Yes. -I said, "Hey.
My friend -- I had a $100 bet with my friend
that you said I'd never host 'The Tonight Show.'
And look at me now. You owe me 100 bucks."
And then -- And then you came out
and threw 100 bucks on my desk.
Yeah. So that was good luck.
-[ Laughs ]
[ Cheers and applause ]
That was -- That was good luck.
-Yeah. -Yeah.
You actually were my first-ever guest on "Late Night"
back in the day, 15 years ago.
-Well... -I couldn't book the show.
Because I was taking over for Conan O'Brien
and I was brand-new and no one knew
if I was gonna be a hit or not.
And, so, I remember we did a couple charity events
or I did something with you -- Tribeca Festival.
And I called you and said, "Would you want to come on?"
And you're like, "I have nothing to promote or talk about,
but I will."
And I go -- I'll never forget that.
You did me a solid. That was awesome.
That was really nice. Thank you.
-Yeah. -Uh, congrats on your ninth
Academy Award nomination, by the way.
-Thank you. -Not too --
[ Cheers and applause ]
Not too shabby. Do you --
Do you get excited when you get nominated for...?
-Yeah. I mean, I don't get not excited.
-Yeah. -No. It's nice.
-Yeah. And...
[ Laughter ]
I feel like our interviews have gotten better
throughout the years.
Uh, but do you -- How do you act, though?
Because you're up against, uh, Robert Downey Jr.
So your name is pretty similar.
-Yeah. It was. And he was great in the movie.
-Oh, yeah.
-I didn't recognize him in the beginning.
And I kept saying, "Who's that? Who's that?"
And then I realized it was him. -Oh, he's amazing.
-And then I saw him at a thing last summer,
and I said, "You were terrific. Really great."
-But when you're at the Academy Awards
and they go, "And the winner is Robert Duh..."
-Yeah, yeah. That happened. That happened.
-I saw your face. -I need to go like this.
-A little bit. Yeah. I saw you act a little bit there.
You were like... -Then I got used to it
after a few times.
-You just kept standing up and sitting down.
Like, "Oh. Congratulations. Yeah. Awesome."
[ Laughter ]
I saw this photo of you here on the Internet
that got the Internet buzzing here.
It's a picture of you, Austin Butler, and Snoop Dogg.
[ Laughter ]
What -- What was this?
-We, uh -- A mutual friend had introduced us, and we --
That's why. So we were out in California.
So that was it. We just hung out a little bit. [ Laughs ]
-So you're not dropping an album or anything?
-Not at this point, no.
-Not at this point. No no, no.
I want to talk about, uh --
I want to talk about the Tribeca Festival
because this is 23 years.
You and Jane Rosenthal...
-Yes. -...started this.
I think I was at the first one with you.
-Well, yes. -We did a bit together.
But 23 years. -Yeah.
-Amazing what you've done. -Yeah.
[ Cheers and applause ]
-Was it -- Was it always the plan
to just keep doing it every year?
-No, I mean, we didn't know how it would turn out,
and every year it would still be going strong,
so we just kept doing it,
but we had no idea that it would --
hopefully it would -- become part of the city,
part of the fabric of the city.
And so it did. It's great.
-It started not too long after 9/11.
-Right. Right. We got it together in a few months,
right after 9/11.
Forgetting how many. It was four or five months.
We whipped it into shape, got it going.
-But you have -- Now it's everything.
It's TV shows. It's podcasts. It's video games.
It's the biggest thing out there.
And I think it's so cool what you're doing
for all these young directors, too,
and all these new movies,
and they owe a lot to to you and Jane
and what you guys have done for the city.
Thank you very much. Congratulations.
-Yeah. Thank you. [ Cheers and applause ]
-You're also doing -- This year...
This year will be the 50th anniversary of "Mean Streets."
You and Martin Scorsese.
50 years. That sounds crazy.
-I know. I know.
-Do you remember signing up for this movie?
-Well, I remember Marty and I meeting about it
at a friend's for Christmas dinner.
We weren't talking about the movie,
but that came up, and Marty said,
"I have this thing if you want to look at it, blah, blah, blah."
And so then we talked about it for the next couple of months.
-You were friends already?
-I had known Marty from a distance as kids.
We had a mutual friend who would go back and forth
between his group and mine, and so I knew him like that.
And so when I saw "Who's That Knocking"
when we met at this dinner, this Christmas dinner,
I said, "That's really a terrific movie.
And you know that world so well. Blah, blah, blah."
And, you know, but, you know -- We knew each other.
We were aware of each other when we were kids.
-And he was like, "I think I want you
for Johnny Boy in 'Mean Streets'"?
-He offered me that, and there was one --
two or three other parts.
Not Harvey Keitel. His was a lead.
But just, um, uh --
And I was trying to decide which one I would play.
This one, that one. Finally I did Johnny Boy.
-Yeah. Was there ever a time in your life
where you didn't think you were going to make it as an actor?
Did you have any side jobs?
-I was very positive about it.
Um, for a split second,
it hit me when I was 27 or something,
but I was doing okay even then.
So, you know, not -- never really...
I was lucky. -[ Laughs ] Yeah.
Yeah, that's what I say about me. I'm lucky as well.
Uh, yeah. You don't have to say it.
I'll say it. Yeah. Thank you.
-We're both -- We're both lucky.
-Yeah. We're both lucky.
Let's talk about your new film, "Ezra."
Uh, this is, uh -- This is fantastic.
And I love everyone involved with this.
How did you -- How did you get hooked up with this?
-Well, I -- They had contacted me about doing it
and being a part of it, and I wasn't sure in the beginning.
I asked for a reading, a table reading.
I do a lot, with a movie -- I have -- We sit around a table,
and some of the actors are already involved.
It's just a bunch of actors have gotten together who want --
-Bobby Cannavale is great.
-Yeah. And so we had the reading,
and then I was still apprehensive
about certain things. I wasn't sure.
And we talked about it, and they made the --
adjusted those things and so on and so forth.
And everybody was so nice. Good spirit.
People who had this, uh --
had been involved in situations
with their -- with their own kids,
say, the writer, Tony Spiridakis,
myself, and so on.
We all had that thing together and...
-A child with autism. -Yeah.
-But it's a great story.
And once again, you do a fantastic job.
Here's Robert De Niro in the movie "Ezra."
Take a look.
-You can't even say the word.
-Eh. Just a word.
-Autism.
-Yeah, whatever.
-[ Chuckles ]
Saying it out loud, it'll help Ezzie in his life.
-Meh. You know what?
I don't -- I'm not sure about that.
-We got to be able to talk about this and not...
-Okay. Tell me. What do you want to talk about?
-Be hiding. I don't want to be hiding about it.
I want to talk about it. I want to give it a name.
I want to get -- I want to get all the help we can get.
-Who's hiding? Who's hiding? Nobody's hiding.
-Max is hiding him right now! He took him. He's hiding him.
-He's not hiding him. -He's afraid of him.
-He's taking him somewhere.
-Robert De Niro, everybody. [ Cheers and applause ]
"Ezra" is in theaters May 31st.
Check out TribecaFilm.com
for tickets to the Tribeca Festival.
You always show up. You always show up for me.
I love you, bud. -That's it?
-That's it. Robert De Niro. Come on back
for more "Tonight Show," everybody.