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Robert De Niro

Born in Manhattan on August 17, 1943, Robert De Niro has built a screen career around intensity, control and a remarkable willingness to change shape. He studied acting at HB Studio, the Actors Studio and Stella Adler’s conservatory before emerging in the early 1970s. His performance as the young Vito Corleone in The Godfather Part II brought his first Academy Award, for supporting actor; Raging Bull later earned him the Oscar for best actor. Raging Bull remains a defining example of De Niro’s physically committed approach. Yet the breadth of his work is just as important as the preparation behind it. In Once Upon a Time in America, he brings restraint to the role of Noodles, while The Mission places him in a period drama far removed from the New York crime stories often associated with him. Angel Heart, The Untouchables and Midnight Run each use his authority differently, with the latter giving his severe, tightly wound presence a strong comic counterweight. The 1990s offer an especially rich run. Goodfellas, Awakenings, Cape Fear and Backdraft arrived within two years, moving from controlled menace to vulnerability and psychological terror. Casino and Heat followed in 1995, two crime films that draw on De Niro’s gift for making watchfulness feel active. Sleepers and Ronin continued that harder-edged stretch, with De Niro playing priest Bobby Carillo in the former and American mercenary Sam in the latter. He has also shown how well that imposing presence can serve comedy and fantasy. As suspicious former CIA operative Jack Byrnes in Meet the Parents, every look becomes an interrogation. In Stardust, his Captain Shakespeare plays knowingly against expectations. Men of Honor gives him another forceful authority figure in Master Chief Billy Sunday. De Niro’s work extends beyond acting to producing and directing, including his directorial debut A Bronx Tale and the spy drama The Good Shepherd. Across crime films, dramas, thrillers and comedies, his best performances share a particular tension: the sense that even when he is still, the character is thinking several moves ahead.