“It is like making three films at the same time”: Robert de Niro with his exciting TV debut – as America’s savior | TV

ART reflects life on the Netflix Show Zero Day, a tense political thriller for Donald Trump’s second term. There are mobs on the street and right -wing extremist trolls on television. There is a billionaire who makes disaster and a rushing state in the congress. Robert de Niro is retiring as ex-President George Mullen to examine a paralyzing cyber attack. Mullen is stubborn and brave, but he is a man of the past, not quite on his stette. His daughter believes that he is not in contact. “The world has changed in a way that it does not understand,” says his wife.

I look forward to talking to De Niro about zero Day and his real echoes. The policy of the show led him to the project. The actor did no secret of his disgust and dismissing Trump. But our zoom interview has restrictions. Netflix asked that there are “no personal or political questions” and sent a few publicists to serve as chaperons. Even ex-presidents and film stars have to work within a wider system. Sometimes you have freedom. Maybe not at other times.

De Niro shines from his house in New York. He looks the ideal of an 81-year-old man: trim and good-looking, with platinum hair and professor’s specifications. There is a pot fern on his head and a barking dog at his feet. A good thing when he didn’t do a day was that he kept his little daughter Gia, the youngest of his seven children. At his age, he learned to choose his roles more precisely. “I recently offered something else in Eastern Europe. It was a great script, but I couldn’t get it up and one of the sticking points was the place. “New York shootings are the best, he says. “It is important, it helps, especially with children and so on.”

Everyone will have their favorite -De -Niro performance, be it silky Vito Corleone or poisonous Jake Lamotta. The Harried Bounty Hunter from midnight or the traumatized green basket cap of the deer hunter. Of course, the actor has his own favorites. Yesterday he was in a fundraising campaign for school, and the other parents – all much younger than him – asked to discuss his role in Martin Scorseses taxi drivers, which was nice and strange because there was no way to predict which films take last and which have won ‘T.

“I mean, we always liked this script,” he says. “We found something special. Marty and I and Paul Schrader who wrote it. But you never know after that. So of course there are (taxi driver), but there are others. The godfather II, Raging Bull, King of Comedy. Everything I did with Marty Scorsese. Roland Joffe is the mission. David o Russell, Barry Levinson. “He shrugs the armpits. “I was lucky enough to work with these great directors.”

Zero Day is not a taxi driver, but a fine autumn thrives. Netflix ‘Thriller was developed by two political journalists – the New York Times correspondent Michael S Schmidt and the former NBC producer Noah Oppenheim – and shows the United States, which can be switched on and off like a light. Shadowy Malware excludes the air traffic control system and transfer trains to the same section of the route. The panic of the country, conspiracy theories are abandoned and the crisis plays in six precision tooled episodes. It is a large, shiny production with countless subplotes and an ensemble cast. But de Niro is the linchpin and brings the whole thing back to the middle.

He always considered himself a great actor, but knows that television has changed, and thought that this could be a good time to dive. The average film shoot can feel like a sprint. This felt more like a marathon.

“It is like making three features at the same time,” he says. “I compared it to be in the channel between France and England and looked back. I can no longer see France and I can’t see England. So I have to continue swimming and with the scenes, the endless information, the boost of the story. Stay in front of it. So it was a completely different kind of experience for me. “

His hero, George Mullen, is a one -term president who said goodbye after a grief of the family. He is imperfect, but decent; A public servant of the old school. “I had the idea of ​​a president, the trustworthy, popular, and who said the truth as much as possible,” says de Niro. “He is a person who tries to be uncomplicated. Who has no other agenda than doing the right thing. “

I ask if mullen is based on someone and he says that no, he really is not. Maybe very easily Joe Biden. I say that he reminded me more of Jimmy Carter, a respected commander -in -chief, and he accepts that there may be a truth.

“Well, Carter was a great president. He was a good person, a friendly person, sensitively. Nobody really gave him recognition until the end. But that was important to me that he was a good person. I didn’t know that (back then), but I saw interviews about him who stated that he was also a little unrestricted, an outsider in a way, and that is also interesting for me. “

A president who emphatically does not resemble Mullen is Donald Trump. De Niro despises Trump on an almost visceral level. He was one of the most pronounced public critics of the man. He called him a pig and a punk and a scam and a dog. He called him an idiot and an Mutt, a real estate custody and a two-bit playboy. But today he says nothing. He is polite, but seems careful. The publicists ping a message to me that I look back on the show.

The best artist-like wired with their time. De Niro, probably more than any other living actor, embodied the turbulent decades of the American century. His golden years were involved with Vietnam and Watergate, the crime rates and a cross -border bankrupt New York City. That is why he is familiar with political instability, division and anger and a feeling of chaos. But I have the impression that the situation under Trump (the tariffs, cuts and shots; the conversion of the federal government) is different. In addition, I suspect that he thinks it is without precedent.

“Well, I would ask you that,” he shoots back. “Do you think that’s it?”

“I think that’s it,” I tell him. “But I don’t have your reach of history.”

“Yes, you are much younger than me.” He takes a break. “But it’s unprecedented. It is. It’s simple. As we all know. “

Is he hopeful or desperate? “I am not desperate because I always look at the bright side and hope that things are right for themselves and that people appreciate goodness and empathy and try to do the right thing. So I can’t help but think that. “Another break. “Some people look at (things) differently. You have different values. That bothers me. I don’t understand. But I just have to look at things optimistically. “

The niros zoom window is minimized and one of the publicists comes in. “I’m sorry to interrupt,” she says. “But can you just bring it back to show questions?”

Michael s Schmidt-Co-creator from zero day-is still employee of the New York Times. Last month he submitted a story about the president’s endangered reprisals against his perceived enemies. Schmidt and his co-author Glenn Thrush contacted more than two dozen of Trump’s most famous public critics. Almost everyone, they said, now rejected it to comment if they made them a goal.

I mention this article de Niro and make a last attempt. “I wonder,” I say: “If you now feel that you have to be more careful what you say.”

He has no time to answer. The publicist is on. “No no no. I’m sorry, Xan, I’m really sorry, but we agreed. Can we just return to the show because we don’t have much time? “And that is the end of our Trump conversation – in that it ever became one.

In the past, I have conducted interviews with car crash interviews and I am not sure how it is quite qualified. It is too polite and well managed; The sound is weakly excused. It is not even clear who is in the driving seat. Is it the actor’s decision not to discuss Trump with the press, or has his contract amazed him? In any case, it raises an obvious question. If de niro-a world-famous two-time Oscar winner doesn’t feel like you are pronounced, you ask yourself who is doing in the United States.

At Zero Day, de Niro effectively plays the role of backstop, the last line of defense in the United States. President Mullens Secret Service’s code name is the legend. Colleagues describe him as a knight in shiny armor. He is old and exhausted, but his values ​​are solid and he is still ready for a fight. We need such heroes, says de Niro, both on television and in films. “And in the real world, of course, of course.”

The Zero Day will be on Netflix from February 20.