-My first guest is a multiple Oscar-winning actor
and a legendary New Yorker.
He's a co-founder of the Tribeca Film Festival,
which celebrates its 20th anniversary
starting this Wednesday.
Here is Robert De Niro.
[ Cheers and applause ]
Hey, buddy. Oh, my God. I love you, buddy!
[ Cheers and applause ]
We have a full --
It's our first full audience in over a year.
-Wow. Oh.
In over a year, this is the first full audience?
-Yeah, this is it. -Great, great.
-Yeah.
[ Laughter ]
-I'm sorry I can't be there.
-No. Look. We're happy to see you and talk to you.
Thanks so much for being here.
Every time. I love seeing you, buddy.
The Tribeca Film Festival this Wednesday
kicks off with "In the Heights."
Which is unbelievable, by the way. It's fantastic.
It is perfect for the Tribeca Film Festival.
It's been 20 years
since and you Jane Rosenthal thought of this.
Did you ever imagine it would be this big
or end up being this big? -No.
I mean, we were just thinking of it year by year
in the beginning,
and then it -- it took off.
But who can predict these types of things?
-Yeah, we talk about this.
You're nice enough to come on our show
and talk about it every year.
We go through the good moments,
and the one you said that sticks in your mind
is having Nelson Mandela and him speaking about movies.
And it stuck in your mind,
the healing properties of movies and how --
-Yes. -Yeah.
I was going to ask you, is there a film with --
-No. Just -- Just -- -Is there --
-Go, go, go. Sorry. I'm telling somebody
to leave the room because they're distracting me.
Sorry.
[ Laughter ]
I'm trying to do...
but my hands are going like this.
-Get out of the room! Get out! We're doing
"The Tonight Show" for goodness --
But it's the first time you've had a full audience
in your living room. It's amazing.
[ Cheers and applause ]
-Yeah, it's a more intimate situation, actually,
one-on-one, for me, where I am in my living room.
So having somebody there, it just feels better this way.
-I think this is special for me
because I think this probably will be the last time
we'll ever FaceTime with each other
'cause next time it will be in person.
-Yes, yes. -Yeah, so this is good.
We're making a little history tonight.
-Yeah. -Yeah. Uh...
[ Laughter ]
Yeah. I can tell you're excited as much as I am.
-[ Laughter ] -I am.
-No. It's alright. Hold it back. Hold it back. Alright. Yeah.
Let's bring that person back into the room.
-No. No. I'm very happy. Don't worry.
-I know you are. I know, buddy.
Now, you're taking this Tribeca Film Festival --
You're doing this thing called "Borough by Borough."
And you're having these outdoor screenings.
Like, virtual -- Like, these awesome
40-foot L.E.D. drive-ins, basically.
-Yes. -I remember -- The first year
you started getting into virtual-reality stuff.
Like, not just movies. Breaking out --
Also embracing -- This year, you're embracing video games,
which I think is very smart.
-Yes. -It's brilliant. I love it.
-And I played every one of those games.
-Of course you do.
[ Laughter ]
Remember that one time you did a virtual-reality thing?
I think it was your first virtual-reality thing.
And you were in -- Your first virtual-reality thing,
you were in a prison cell.
Do you remember this?
-I -- Was it with you or at the festival?
-I don't know.
I think we might have been together or something weird,
but we put on goggles and we were sitting in a prison cell.
-Oh, okay, yeah. Right, right, right.
-Out of all the things we could have done,
it was just very interesting. Why did we do that?
But it felt like we went to prison together.
Anyway, we served time.
While I have you here, there's a lot of myths about you.
You have a lot of mystique around you.
And I was wondering if I could ask you a couple stories
and see if they're true or not, if you wouldn't mind doing that.
-Sure.
[ Laughter ]
-The first one...
[ Laughter ]
[ Applause ]
-The first one -- -No!
[ Laughter ]
-No. -You have to say yes!
You have to say yes! No, you have to!
It's our first audience. It's our first audience.
-Okay, okay.
-You won your first Oscar for "Godfather II"
playing a young Vito Corleone.
But that almost never happened because you actually auditioned
for the role of Sonny Corleone in the first "Godfather,"
which went to James Caan.
Is that true? -Yes.
Yes. I --
Everybody was up for Michael,
but everybody knew that Al was gonna do it,
that Francis wanted him.
And then -- But I wanted to do the Sonny part, too,
and I read for it.
But I think Francis was pretty set on Jimmy Caan, too.
But, you know, they let me read, so...
-We actually have the audition of you
doing the audition for Sonny Corleone.
I don't know when the last time you saw this,
but it's a few seconds.
Take a look at this. -Here's Robert De Niro.
-You're gonna take both of them out on me.
You're gonna take them,
and you know what they're gonna do to you?
You get his brains all over your nice
new Ivy League suit, Michael.
That's what happens.
You know you can do it? All right. You prove it to me.
You can do it? Go ahead. Prove it.
[ Laughter ]
[ Cheers and applause ]
-Yeah. [ Imitating De Niro ]
Ah, I love it.
[ Laughs ]
Alright. Here's another myth.
In the 1988 movie "Big,"
you were originally cast as Josh,
the role that ended up going to Tom Hanks.
Is that true?
-Yes.
-Wow. This is unbelievable. -But we had a thing --
an issue with the negotiations, so it went the way it went.
But that was fine. You know.
[ Laughter ]
-Alright. How about this one here?
One of the most iconic lines in the movie,
"You talkin' to me?",
was not actually in the script of "Taxi Driver."
Did you ad-lib that line?
-More or less, yeah. -Yeah.
-Is that the line that people yell out to you
the most when they see you?
-Sometimes, yes. From odd places.
You know, a bunch of kids pull up next to me in the --
I remember years ago in L.A. down in the Valley
or somewhere in Culver City.
Kids pull up next to me at a red light, and they say,
"You talkin' to me?"
I don't know how they recognized me or whatever.
-[ Laughs ] Do you ever answer them back?
-No.
[ Laughter ]
-"I'm not talking to you."
That is Robert De Niro right there, everybody.
He's the greatest. -[ Cheers and applause ]
The 20th anniversary of the Tribeca Film Festival
kicks off this week.