Robert De Niro | Good Hang with Amy Poehler

Episode Overview

• Host Amy Poehler (a former Saturday Night Live cast member and star of Parks and Recreation) explores how a notoriously private, soft-spoken actor like Robert De Niro approaches his craft, comedy, lifelong creative partnerships, and political responsibility.
• In a pre-interview preparation segment, Poehler consults with former SNL cast member Rachel Dratch, former SNL head writer Seth Meyers, and De Niro’s longtime producing partner Jane Rosenthal to learn how to navigate De Niro's famous brevity and quiet demeanor.
• De Niro reflects on his New York City upbringing in the Greenwich Village art scene, his early stage and film work, and his technique of avoiding "indicating" to maintain real-life ambiguity in both dramatic masterpieces like Goodfellas and broad SNL sketches.
• The conversation highlights De Niro's personal habits, his 37-to-38-year producing partnership with Rosenthal co-founding the Tribeca Film Festival, his restaurant ventures like Nobu, and his family life watching modern television with his children.
• The episode culminates in an emotional moment where Poehler thanks De Niro for using his status to stand up against political bullies under Donald Trump, moving De Niro to tears as he explains why people must choose contagious courage over hopelessness.

Key Concepts

• Speaker Roles, Business Ties, and Disclosed Sponsors: Alongside host Amy Poehler (who moved to NYC in 1996 and has lived there for 30 years), the episode features prep guests Rachel Dratch (co-creator and performer of the "Debbie Downer" character), Seth Meyers ("Weekend Update" anchor, current late-night talk show host, co-host of The Lonely Island and Seth Meyers Podcast, and performer at a charity event in Manchester, New Hampshire), and Jane Rosenthal (who mentions a Chanel tribute party held for her the night before at Lincoln Center). Main guest Robert "Bob" De Niro is an Oscar-winning actor, director, producer, co-founder of the Tribeca Film Festival, and co-owner of Nobu and other New York restaurants, appearing to promote his upcoming comedy film Focker In-Law after recently starring in Alto Knights. Disclosed episode sponsors include Uber (promoting the "Women Preferences" feature allowing women riders to request women drivers), Allstate (auto insurance quote promotion), and Hershey's (promoting Hershey's chocolate for s'mores via the "Camp Gooey or Camp Toasty" social media campaign).
• Navigating De Niro's Quiet Authenticity: Despite playing aggressive, dominant characters, De Niro is remarkably soft-spoken, admitting to Poehler that he doesn't talk much because, "What's the point?" and prefers friends who talk a lot so he can sit and listen. Meyers estimates he has spoken to De Niro about 20 times in his life—hedging, "I think I'm at 20 times..."—yet has never been able to bring himself to call him "Bob," though he once accidentally called him "Danny DeVito" and accidentally rode alone with him in an elevator for 17 floors after De Niro's first SNL table read. Meyers notes that while De Niro gives authentic answers with important information, he stops talking once he makes his point. However, De Niro pays close attention; Meyers recalls complimenting De Niro on directing the 2006 CIA movie The Good Shepherd (starring Angelina Jolie and Matt Damon, with Meyers hedging, "I think he's only directed one or two things"), and when Meyers repeated the compliment 4 years later, De Niro replied, "No, I remember."
• Total Commitment in Sketch Comedy: De Niro has hosted SNL 3 times, starting in 2002 during Meyers and Poehler's second season (about 25 episodes into their run, Poehler having started right after 9/11 in 2001). He enjoys the show's fast pace because it prevents him from worrying about failing. His comedic success relies on playing absurd premises completely straight. For the SNL 50th Anniversary "Debbie Downer" sketch—written by Dratch and Paula Pell after seeing De Niro's name on a list of willing stars—De Niro was scripted to mime strangling Dratch, but after she told him in rehearsal he could actually do it, he physically throttled her on live television. Conversely, he knows when to protect his boundaries: Meyers wrote an SNL sketch for him called "Pranksters" (previously done with Christopher Walken), where De Niro played an older man on a Nickelodeon prank show who hid in a neighbor's garage and cut him up with a chainsaw over a borrowed lawnmower. After commercial parody director Jim Signorelli had De Niro sprayed with pudding-like fake blood on the first take and wanted a second take (requiring a full shower), Meyers called it off when De Niro asked, "Are we good? We get it?" (During his segment, Meyers also shows a framed photo from his childhood bedroom of his 1982 championship football team, "82 Champs," when he was 9 years old.)
• Loyalty, Partnerships, and Personal Quirks: Rosenthal and De Niro have worked together for 37 or 38 years (almost 38 years) and co-founded the Tribeca Film Festival, which is celebrating its 25th year after starting to help revitalize downtown NYC after 9/11. Rosenthal notes that De Niro has kept the same group of friends for decades, loves good food, and "loves a good conspiracy theory." During the London Film Festival premiere of The Irishman, he insisted their group fly to Paris at 11:00 PM to eat at a specific restaurant that stayed open for him until 1:00 or 2:00 in the morning. Though he has a photographic memory for exact NYC street corners and delis where he filmed scenes decades ago, he sometimes calls Rosenthal and forgets why he called, and once called her out of the blue to ask, "What do you think about exposed brick?" regarding sandblasting her office walls rather than a script.
• New York Roots and Early Artistic Influences: Growing up in Greenwich Village, De Niro hung out in Little Italy around Kenmare, Mulberry, and Broome Streets, whereas Martin Scorsese hung out around Prince, Mott, and Elizabeth Streets. While making Alto Knights (written by former crime reporter Nicholas Pileggi), De Niro realized the social club in the script was a childhood hangout, and his late friend Butch (featured in a documentary at Lincoln Center) remembered details about it that De Niro had forgotten. Both of De Niro's parents were painters and poets; his favorite NYC museums are the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), though he hedges, "My mother or father might have something in the Museum of Modern Art, I think, I'm not 100% sure." He never met Andy Warhol or went to The Factory, though his father took him to galleries that owed him money. His first NYC apartment was a walk-up studio/one-bedroom on Irving Place, which he hedges cost "I think it was $75... It might have not even been a one-bedroom, might have been just one room..." His first stage role was the Cowardly Lion in The Wizard of Oz at age 10 (4th grade), though he hedges "I don't know" when asked what he brought to the role or if he sang, noting "it's been so long, I was 10." As a kid in NYC, he watched Abbott and Costello, The Three Stooges, and Laurel and Hardy every Saturday at "The Laugh Movie" theater on 42nd Street, saw actor Alan Arkin on the street (hedging, "I think Alan was from... I'm not sure where, maybe he was Long Island..."), and later saw the original stage production of Glengarry Glen Ross featuring Robert Duvall and John Savage (hedging, "I'm forgetting who else" was in the play).
• The Craft of "Not Indicating" and Sincerity: De Niro explains that acting allows you to experience other characters' lives without paying their real-world price, and the key to the craft is never "indicating" (telegraphing emotions to the audience), because people in real life do not indicate. In the Goodfellas alley scene with Lorraine Bracco, he and Scorsese (though De Niro hedges, "I can't remember, it's been a while..." regarding Scorsese's exact words on set) aimed to play the moment casually and ambiguously so the audience wouldn't know if Jimmy Conway was setting Karen Hill up to be killed, even though De Niro personally leaned toward thinking something bad would happen to her. He also values sincerity off-camera: while looping The Last Tycoon, director Elia Kazan praised his performance, and when De Niro thanked him for the effort even if he wasn't sure Kazan meant it, Kazan was offended. De Niro learned to play the saxophone phonetically for New York, New York and regrets not practicing for half an hour a day to keep the skill up (noting his mother forced him to take piano lessons at age 5, which he hated). He does not watch his old movies, but wants to watch his entire filmography in order with a writer friend to record commentary and see what is missing from his body of work.
• Comedic Evolution and Appreciation of Peers: De Niro's earliest comedies were Greetings (1968) and Hi, Mom! (1970) with director Brian De Palma, which involved improvisation, and he deadpans that "another comedy we did was The Untouchables years later"—a film in which Chicago improv pioneer Del Close (who founded ImprovOlympic, where Poehler studied after moving from Boston to Chicago post-college) delivered the titular line. De Niro remembers watching Rob Reiner host an early episode of SNL doing a Wayne Newton-style singing bit, and finds Alec Baldwin's impression of him flattering and hysterical, especially Baldwin's bit mocking how De Niro, Al Pacino, Robert Duvall, Francis Ford Coppola, Talia Shire, and James Caan mumbled at The Godfather reunion. He agrees with Meryl Streep's claim that he is bad at charades, and recalls first seeing Streep perform onstage in The Cherry Orchard with Raul Julia at Lincoln Center while scouting for The Deer Hunter with director Michael Cimino (hedging, "I don't even know if we went backstage, I'm not sure"). He also praises Ben Stiller's multi-layered comedic reactions in the Meet the Parents franchise and Ariana Grande's performance in Focker In-Law.
• Everyday Life, Fatherhood, and Contagious Courage: In his daily life, De Niro's go-to order at Nobu is black cod, his favorite pizza slice is pepperoni, and he listens to 1970s and 1980s music in the car on SiriusXM Channel 16 ("The Blend"). He rarely gets recognized walking in NYC because he looks like an "older guy" who doesn't register in people's peripheral vision, and he does not know what a "thirst trap" is until Poehler shows him a sexy TikTok edit of his younger self on her phone. At home, he watches Ms. Rachel with his 3-year-old daughter Gia, and watches Stranger Things (having also seen the Broadway play), The Housemaid, and Modern Family with his 14-year-old daughter Helen, though he wishes she would watch classic films. Politically, De Niro is deeply emotional about the state of the U.S. under Donald Trump, tearing up when Poehler thanks him for speaking out, and citing Rep. Jason Crow's phrase that "courage is contagious" to urge people to fight back rather than succumb to hopelessness.

Quotes

• At 0:07:26 - "I was in the rehearsal, I was like, 'You know, if you want to actually strangle me, you can.' So then he actually strangled me in the scene. I was like, 'I'm getting strangled by Robert De Niro! This is like, no comedy person ever thinks that's going to happen to them.'" - Rachel Dratch explaining how De Niro physically throttled her during the live SNL 50th Anniversary "Debbie Downer" sketch instead of miming it.
• At 0:15:21 - "Bob gives great answers. Uh, there's a lot of, uh, important information in his answers, I think he answers with authenticity. What he does not give are long answers." - Seth Meyers preparing Amy Poehler for De Niro's direct, concise communication style.
• At 0:18:10 - "Once again I was like, 'Hey, by the way, I really liked—' and he's like, 'No, I remember.' It had been like four years. I'm like, 'Oh, right, like, just 'cause he's quiet doesn't mean he's not hearing you.'" - Seth Meyers recounting what happened when he repeated a compliment to De Niro about directing The Good Shepherd.
• At 0:25:20 - "You can tell who somebody is by how long they keep their friends, and he's had the same group of friends going, like, way back. And he's funny, and he loves a good conspiracy theory." - Jane Rosenthal describing De Niro's personal loyalty and personality off-camera.
• At 0:32:00 - "And I think being an actor, it allows you—I always used to say this and still say—it allows you to be other characters that you would normally not know at all, or this way it gives you a little taste of what they would be like and that experience would be like, and so without having really to pay a price, although you're aware of the price, whatever that character's price is, you know." - Robert De Niro explaining the psychological appeal of acting.
• At 0:43:20 - "Well, the thing that I was concerned about is just that, as Marty was, as I remember, is just that you don't know what he really is doing. Is he setting her up or not? And so it's just making it as—which happens in life, too, in that way, you know, the same thing. 'Yeah, it's okay, it's, you know,' just be very casual, and God knows what'll happen to you. Could be nothing, it could be something." - Robert De Niro breaking down how he and Martin Scorsese approached the ambiguity of the alley scene with Lorraine Bracco in Goodfellas.
• At 0:44:34 - "Well, it's important to not, you know—indicating in acting is indicating. And so you say to an actor who's, you just watched a scene or something, not in a negative, critical way, but you can't, don't indicate, or you are indicating, so it's better not to, you know. In life, people don't do that. They just do—they're good actors, people in life." - Robert De Niro sharing his core acting philosophy on why performers must avoid telegraphing their intentions.
• At 0:48:47 - "Well, I practiced a lot with the saxophone in New York, New York, and, but I never kept it up, and I regretted that. Because I did work very hard on it, did everything phonetically, but it's the skill, that you can't take away, I mean, that's real." - Robert De Niro reflecting on learning the saxophone phonetically and his regret over not practicing half an hour a day to maintain it.
• At 0:51:30 - "What I like about it [SNL] is that it's so fast, it doesn't give you time to think. And you got to change, get into different costumes, this and that, boom, boom, boom, boom, they've got the cards for you. It's so fast, you know, you cannot worry about failing, if you will, whatever that means, and just have fun with it." - Robert De Niro explaining why the rapid pace of hosting Saturday Night Live removes the fear of failure.
• At 0:57:27 - "Well, Ben [Stiller], he has a way of, when you, when he reacts to what you say, which is kind of a funny line, say, my character, Jack, he'll go, 'Uh-huh, oh, yeah.' He has a way of commenting on what you just said, saying that it's not too smart, a little stupid, 'But uh-huh, I'm giving you the respect.' Well, he has a way of commenting on it, and so there's three different things, four different things going on at once in his reaction, and he's very funny." - Robert De Niro analyzing the mechanics of Ben Stiller's comedic reactions in the Meet the Parents films.
• At 1:01:00 - "People have peripheral vision, and if they see somebody physically like me, uh, I'm older and stuff, I look like an older guy, you know. So they're not going to look at you, their peripheral vision doesn't make them interested in looking at you anyway. So I just walk and nobody, I get not recognized much." - Robert De Niro explaining how he walks around New York City largely unnoticed.
• At 1:07:25 - "I use this example of Jason Crow saying, um, that, uh, courage is contagious. Uh, and the other thing, the negative feelings can be contagious, too, but why not have courage and be contagious and stand up? And they might find out it's not so difficult, and people will stop the nonsense that they're doing." - Robert De Niro urging people to actively stand up against political bullies rather than give in to negativity.

Takeaways

• Stop "indicating" in performance and communication: Whether acting in a tense drama, performing broad sketch comedy, or navigating real life, avoid telegraphing your emotions or winking at the audience; commit fully to the casual reality of the moment.
• Don't mistake quietness for inattention: When dealing with soft-spoken or brief communicators, recognize that they are often actively listening and retaining details for years—so avoid repeating yourself just to fill the silence.
• Use fast-paced environments to bypass the fear of failure: When stepping outside your comfort zone (like a dramatic actor doing live sketch comedy), embrace rapid momentum that forces you to execute tasks without overthinking.
• Maintain hard-earned physical skills through daily micro-habits: If you invest heavy effort into learning a real skill or instrument for a project, dedicate just half an hour a day afterward to keep the ability alive rather than letting it fade.
• Build comedy through layered reactions: Instead of trying to force a joke, study how effective comedic partners react—conveying skepticism, politeness, and commentary simultaneously in a simple response.
• Invest in multi-decade relationships: Measure personal and professional grounding by longevity, maintaining both childhood friendships and long-term creative partnerships that can anchor major community projects.
• Choose contagious courage over hopelessness: Because both negative feelings and bravery spread to others, use whatever platform or status you have to stand up to bullies, demonstrating to others that pushing back is not as difficult as it seems.