obert De Niro and Al Pacino hopped over to London with Martin
Scorsese’s new gangster epic, The Irishman. An audience with
two of the most influential actors to ever rise up through the
Hollywood ranks covered the pair’s long friendship, their remarkable
collaborations in the gangster genre and De Niro’s pungently-worded
thoughts on the current commander-in-chief.LWLies: What do you like most about working with each other? Pacino:
We’ve known each other for a really long time. We met in 1968. And we were
both young actors at that time. I think early on in our careers, we connected
and we found we had similar things happening to us. That camaraderie,
that symbiosis, that got us together. And we’ve been that way ever since.
We don’t see each other much, but it’s always been there, and from a very
early time we shared certain things. And in a way, I think we helped each
other throughout these meetings.How would you define the relationship between these two characters,
Frank Sheeran and Jimmy Hoffa? Pacino: Well, we had a chance to explore
that again; something we’re familiar with. It was a root to a relationship, I
think. We’ve played it before: in the film Heat, we were actually on opposite
ends, and in Righteous Kill we were close, and in this film we were close in a
different way. It came relatively easy to come to that place. I don’t even think
we talked about it consciously, but it was in the writing, of course. And in the
nature of the two people’s relationship in real life, too.Scorsese has said that The Irishman is a kind of a summation of previous
films. Do you feel the same way, with the cast, and the scale of this
movie, that it’s a full-circle moment for you? De Niro: Yeah, in a lot of
ways it is. When I was talking to Joe Pesci about it, he was going back and
forth, and I said ‘Joe, c’mon, you don’t know if we’re going to be able to do
this ever again. And for that reason itself we should do this.’ And it was
tough enough to get it done, tough enough to get the money to do it. But
yeah, it is full circle. I don’t see us doing another movie like this. Hopefully
we will do other films together, maybe even something in this genre, you
never know. But it’s not likely. So this is it, probably.Is there a reason, Al, that you’ve never made a film with Scorsese before?
Pacino: I know. Like everything in this business, if you’ve been in it for a
while, you realise things get started, and then they go into different places.
They don’t always culminate into a film. A couple of times, Marty and I were
gonna do something together. One project particularly was the Modiglianifilm. We had been working on it for almost a year, and then it slipped away.
Either the text doesn’t come together or schedules are different... it’s odd how
that happens. I’m myself surprised that I haven’t worked with him.Do you think regret is a key element of this character, one that
differentiates Frank from other mobsters you’ve played? De Niro: The
actual situation was that Charlie Brandt, the author [of the book the film was
adapted from, ‘I Heard You Paint Houses’] was a prosecutor and a guy who
was good at getting confessions out of people. Frank liked him, and he was
an adversary in court, but later he hired Brandt to represent him and got to
know him. Eventually, he got it out of Frank. So, Frank Sheeran had a lot of
Irish-Catholic guilt. That’s just as valid as Jewish guilt and Italian guilt, and
all the other guilts.What is it like working now versus when you first started? Pacino: It sort
of depends on what you’re doing, and sometimes you’re working in a way
because it’s – I hate to say it – sometimes it’s between inspirations. I guess
you can go 20 years in between inspirations. You’re just working, and the
work you’re doing to survive is occupying your ability to find something that
you really connect with and really want to do. So sometimes you get back to
looking around and seeing what’s out there for you. It’s a lot like any form
of expression or creation. You got the blank page. And hopefully you keep
the blank page, that canvas is always empty. Because that character you’ve
not explored yet, so that gives you something to work for. Sometimes, I feel- Bob, I don’t know if you feel the same – I know nothing about acting. And
then you start, and that’s exciting for me, and interesting. There’s something
on the horizon coming. It’s the same thing for me as it always was. You’re still
dealing with this new person, this new character, this new story.
Thematically, with The Irishman, although you were trying to make it
10 years ago, it seems very relevant now, with the gangster-isation of
American politics. De Niro: The unions have been cleaned up more in
recent years, but now, we have an immediate problem. We have a gangster
president who thinks that he can do anything he wants. The gall of the
people around him to actually defend him, these Republicans, is appalling.
And we must do something about it. People must do something about it.
They can’t get away with bullying us. They cannot do it. It’s a shame, it’s a
shame that people behave so badly.Do you think Trump will go to jail? De Niro: Oh, I can’t wait to see him in jail.
I don’t want him to die... I want him to go to jailRobert De Niro
and Al Pacino
Face to face with two of the greatest actors of their generation,
together in Martin Scorsese’s majesterial The Irishman.
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IN CONVERSATION Interview by CHRISTINA NEWLAND Illustration by TOM HUMBERSTONEINTERVIEW 065