Interview: Holding out for De Niro

He loves playing unpredictable characters, but the most cryptic one seems to be the legend himself. Siobhan Synnot finds herself in the company of the enigmatic heavyweight rather than the Raging Bull

THE feral force behind Cape Fear and Taxi Driver, the primal mobster of Goodfellas and The Godfather, Part II, Robert De Niro is a petrifying screen presence, a ferocious eminence to behold. But put him in a room with a journalist and the raging bull starts to clatter around like the one in a china shop.

There's something odd about De Niro in the flesh. On screen he's vital and visceral, completely in command of the camera and those who are watching him. In person, you have to tease and wait for vague or indiscernible answers that walk the air unsteadily before collapsing. He's not exactly handsome, glamorous or arresting either. I spotted him arriving in the lobby, a shortish man ambling like any other slightly chunky 65-year-old man, apart from the attendant cloud of publicists. And while he's keen to be affable, frequently flashing that trademark De Niro no-teeth smile, even straight questions seem to unnerve him.

Have you ever had days like the film producer you play in What Just Happened, where you've struggled with the balance of being a father and an actor?

He looks a little startled. "I haven't quite had days like that, but I had had days…" There's a long pause that he seems reluctant to break. Then he crinkles his Rupert Pupkin grin; "but I'm still here."

It doesn't feel like he's entirely here in this room, however. Flogging his new film is apparently a struggle for De Niro, even though What Just Happened? is probably his most inventive performance in years. Ben, a Hollywood producer, may talk big, but he lives an everyman life of low-key desperation, coloured by De Niro's rueful, human comedy. His next film faces cancellation because actor Bruce Willis (played by Bruce Willis) throws a diva strop when asked to shave off a Karl Marx beard he has been growing for six months. Is De Niro familiar with that sort of star behaviour?

"I can't remember being part of a drama like that," he says, conveniently forgetting the time he had to direct his co-star Marlon Brando in The Score because Brando had thrown a huff and refused to work on the same set as the film's hapless director, Frank Oz.

Given that What Just Happened? kvetches quite a lot about star egos, it's worth noting that without De Niro the film wouldn't have been made. He encouraged producer Art Linson to turn his autobiography into a screenplay and soothed his writer-producer through his doubts, reading the drafts and listening to his knotted storyline problems. "Just keep going," he'd say, which suggests that even his closest friends could hardly describe Bob as chatty.

Mind you, most of his best roles have been practically silent too; the tongue-tied Travis Bickle who launched a thousand "you tawkin' to me" impressions. Even Jake LaMotta dealt out blows more readily than eloquent complaint as he aged from lean and hungry youth to bloated has-been. Those roles made De Niro iconic, the finest actor of his generation, a Brando without the tropical island and loopy behaviour.

That was before he diversified into restaurants and hotels and started his Tribeca production group, where he now serves as actor, director and producer. Tribeca is ambitious and expensive, and there has been speculation that this has forced him to be less discriminating about the film company he keeps.

Last winter the most celebrated actor of his generation, nominated for six Academy Awards and winner of two, showed up in Stardust as a swishy cross-dressing pirate ("trés you"). Last month he and Al Pacino reunited for the first time since their short six minutes in Michael Mann's Heat for the lame cop drama Righteous Kill, a move that feels a little like pandering to fans who had wished the Beatles would get back together.

The frustration of seeing De Niro pushing his way through terrible tat pains us. Even actors need to earn a living, and it is axiomatic in Hollywood that as they age there are fewer opportunities for substantial pay cheques. Appearing in unworthy vehicles isn't just his fault, it's the fault of the business too, which wants the kudos of a star name without the uncertain box-office of risky subject matter.

"The first question when you make a movie is, 'Who's in it?'" he agrees.

"The second question is who is directing it, or what team is putting it together. If they're very, very famous, that decides if the film will go ahead."

So what are his criteria for choosing roles? "Just if they interest me. It could be the director, the script, could be anything, even a scene I think is great. I do like the idea of characters being unpredictable and showing things that you think, 'Well, they wouldn't behave that way,' because they do, like life. That's what makes something interesting, when it's unpredictable and it goes in directions that you don't anticipate."

De Niro's explanation of what makes a character interesting to him is somewhat insightful, but nothing compared with the eloquence of his acting. And he refuses to reveal anything about his research, although to play the mercenary Mendoza in The Mission, he learnt to fence to competition standard; for Godfather II, he learnt fluent Sicilian dialect; for New York, New York, he learnt to play capable jazz sax; and for Taxi Driver, he took out a New York cab driver's licence and picked up fares for a fortnight. "The preparation is personal. That's secret – what you do and how you do it is a secret as long as you arrive at whatever you need to arrive at. That to me is a rule," he says. But he won't be drawn further. Perhaps he heard us sniggering when Terry Gilliam revealed that for his bit part as a renegade plumber in Brazil, De Niro took classes in central heating engineering.

He remains philosophical about his 'tough-guy' image. "It's sort of, you become identified with something and they pick it up and run with it," he says. Granted it is not an easy image to live up to. Often playing hoods or cops, he forged his image in a series of films with director Martin Scorsese, including Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, Goodfellas and Casino. If you press the acting button, he seems to galvanise into that character's strange life. This seems all the more remarkable after meeting De Niro – almost like an unassuming accountant picking up a musical instrument and becoming Miles Davies. He's not at ease with his own words, preferring to use someone else's script. In this respect, he is the opposite of his friend Scorsese, with whom he plans to make two more movies starting next year. The hyperactive Scorsese loves to seize on a single question and extemporise an answer that can last 20 minutes, touching the professional and the personal in a thoughtful, substantial manner. Has De Niro considered closing the door on his discomfiting press duties altogether?

"It is what it is," he shrugs. "It's like a big dinosaur with a tail that swings back and forth and indiscriminately knocks things over. It knocks good things and bad things. That's part of the freedom of the press."

It's worth noting that the kind of stars who inspire awe for their best work and angst over their more flawed career choices usually play heroes – yet De Niro somehow coaxes affection from his portrayals of criminals and delusional vigilantes. When filming scenes on the red carpet at last year's Cannes Film Festival, collecting shots guerrilla-style for What Just Happened?, the French crowds immediately shed their sangfroid and gibbered like De Niro fans the world over. "I was walking around and we had people screaming in French accents, "Bobby, Bobby – are you talking to me," he laughs.

The only place he's truly comfortable is New York, where's he's accepted to the point of becoming part of the cityscape, as unremarkable as turning a corner and seeing the Statue of Liberty or the Empire State Building. When he directed A Bronx Tale, he took on the role of a bus driver and says he was never bothered by the locals – although "people tried to board my bus by mistake." In his neighbourhood, he elicits an old-fashioned protectiveness. If you go looking for his apartment, the locals will misdirect you or clam up. Maybe New York is the wrong place to meet De Niro, just as a five-star London hotel scented with out-of-season flowers will also prove an unsuccessful hunting ground. If you want to meet the real Robert De Niro, you should go to the movies.

• What Just Happened is released November 28