Watch the trailer to De Niro’s new film, What Just Happened?

By Sunita Patel

“You talking to me?” ­ is one of the most famous lines of dialogue in film-making history.

Looking into a mirror at himself, Travis Bickle, played by Robert De Niro, imagines a confrontation which would give him a chance to draw his gun, in the 1976 movie Taxi Driver.

It made De Niro a star.

Now, some 32-years on, the screen legend is sitting opposite me in a suite at The Dorchester Hotel in London and I am asking myself the same question. Not looking for a fight, obviously, but a little star-struck.

With a filmography boasting other cinematic masterpieces such as Raging Bull, Goodfellas, Casino, The Deer Hunter and The Untouchables, ­ it is hard to believe the same credit list includes a string of comedies like Meet the Parents and Analyze This, let alone the animations The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle and Shark Tale.

And it was not so long ago the Academy Award-winning actor played a swashbuckling pirate in fantasy adventure, Stardust.

It is true De Niro’s career has been split between hit and misses during the last decade or so.

His film picks have somewhat deviated from the dark, harrowing, action-packed crime and bullet-fest movies of old that propelled him to super stardom.

But now it’s back to business.

The 65-year-old’s latest movie, What Just Happened?, is a comedy ­ but a serious one.

Based on distinguished producer Art Linson’s (Fight Club, Heat, The Untouchables) best-selling memoir Bitter Hollywood Tales from the Front Line, and directed by Academy Award-winning director Barry Levinson (Rain Man), the film is about two nail-biting, frustrating, back-stabbing and rollercoaster weeks in the world of a middle-aged Hollywood producer, played by De Niro who was keen to get the project off the ground.

“I read the book and I laughed all the way through it and I said to Art, ‘You should write a screenplay and we should make a movie of it and I will play the part’,” he enthuses.

But despite taking a leading interest in the venture and unlike his on-screen character who is forced to contend with the most excruciating moments that go on in the back rooms of the movie business, De Niro left Linson to the writing.

“It is so hard to write a screenplay and Art was always complaining to me about that and I thought it best to leave him alone and let him get on with it,” he grins.

Although the film is a Hollywood satire about Hollywood ­ the behind-the-scenes madness, treachery, deceit, super egos, commercialism, personal politics and atrocious behaviour ­ it is a metaphor of every man/woman’s daily struggles juggling work, and life outside of it.

And De Niro is no different to anyone else who has experienced days or weeks of having to so delicately balance the tug-of-war between worlds.

“I have had those days . . I am still here,” he says.

The main themes of the movie centre on the power actors have in the film industry and the lengths directors will go to to manipulate a movie ­ even if the scripts, producers or film studios disagree.

Two of the best moments are when Bruce Willis, who plays himself, throws a tantrum in the wardrobe department refusing to get rid of his beard for a film, howling about artistic integrity ­ and the rebellious and drug-addled director Jeremy, played by Michael Wincott, throwing a wobbly in the editing room.

Has De Niro been witness to such scenarios? ­ Any divas and maestros making outrageous requests?

“Believe it or not, I can’t remember seeing or being part of a drama like that,” he replies.

“We were lucky to get Bruce Willis. He was great. He got it ­ and he was fun.”

TinselTown is not without its brutalities. For you can be flavour of the month one minute and after one box office crash, never hear the phone ring again the next. There is a thin line between success and failure.

While De Niro is a permanent fixture in the league table of Hollywood big-hitters and is in no apparent danger of losing his reputation as the best of his generation ­ in spite of the odd lacklustre comedy or flop (his recent reunion with Heat co-silver screen great Al Pacino in the recent modern cop thriller Righteous Kill failed to meet expectations) ­ has the actor ever experienced any such rude awakenings?

“It is not that nobody returns your calls ­ it is just that nobody calls you,” he chuckles.

He continues: “No, I haven’t. I haven’t experienced it first-hand. Art has been getting some calls from people in the industry who say it (What Just Happened?) is good. I hope it does well, because it is good.

“I like the fact that between us all ­ everyone knew this world from their perspective. And Art did such a good job. He was so smart about it and funny.

“You look at Italian films ­ they have comedy/drama. This has a more European flavour. It is funny but it also has other elements like struggle.”

So what next for the screen legend?

De Niro fans will be pleased to hear a reunion with Martin Scorsese (Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, Casino, Goodfellas) is on the cards in what will be a return to the typecast, gangster-style movie role with which the actor has been best associated through the years.

He reveals work is under way on an adaptation of Charles Brandt’s book, I Heard You Paint Houses, about the mob assassin Frank “the Irishman” Sheeran ­ with De Niro in the lead role.

“That is something that Marty and I wanted to do,” he says.

“We have an even more ambitious plan of doing another movie connected to it in some way. So yes, that is very much planned to be done.”

* What Just Happened? opens in Shropshire cinemas on November 28.