Robert De Niro pays tribute to Gene Hackman and settles Taxi Driver quote debate

Are you talking to me? Is that good? Are you talking to me

Robert, Debra, welcome to Girl Radio. Thank you so much for talking to me

How are you? Good. Good. Busy time for you. How was the premiere? Was that good

Oh, it was just celebratory and wonderful. Yeah, amazing. And obviously the film comes out on the 21st

Let's talk about the film. Where do I start? Robert, I mean, two roles for you

playing obviously Vito Genovese and Frank Costello. I watched the film a couple of days ago

I mean, it's incredible. I had to kind of sort of talk to myself and go

is that really you playing both characters? How on earth did you do it? I wasn't sure I was going to do it

We talked about it and Erwin Winkler said, well, what if you play both parts

Because they wanted me for Frank Costello and I was thinking of who would play Genovese

And then he said, what about if you did both? I said, let me think about that a couple of days

And I did, and I said, okay. That justified my wanting to do it even more

though everybody there I worked with for years on different projects, Nick Pelleggi, Erwin Winkler, Barry Levinson

And I thought this will be good and interesting. Yeah. So then I just started working on it

And there wasn't as much video or film on either character. I thought there was a lot more, but we tried

Looked and looked and looked. Jason Sosnov, one of our producers, was going

just could not find as much as we thought. But it was enough to help me

And I read some books and spoke to people who knew them

or knew stories about them from years ago. so it was a good good experience surely a lot of research yeah for you and deborah that must have

been fascinating to watch robert in these two characters i mean how was that for you playing

bobby well i mean i my very first day of pre-production i walked in and he was doing

his makeup tests and i saw the two characters next to each other and i i was like wait what's

happening and i just the first thing i just thought was just how incredible the artistry of makeup can

me because he looked completely different and um but like he said these are real people so there

was a lot of material to read and lots of photographs where we could get information

and i was able to talk to bobby nephew and find out you know about their relationship so coming in i think we had a really good foundation As I said I love the film I cannot wait to I been shouting about it saying

when it's out on the 21st, you've got to go and see it. I need to find a way to take it all down

It's just you and me. We are our own family. Bobby is so..

She's a strong... I love that. A strong, inspirational woman. The outfits, the dogs, the jewellery

Let's talk about all of that. I love the film because it's snappy as well. It's New York, 1950s

There's a little something for everybody. Would you agree? Oh, yes, yes

And I didn't know the story at all. And also what I love about it is it also has an essence of being a documentary

because it really does tell you the story that it goes over decades

But, you know, it's not a classic mafia movie because he always comes home at night

and so you get to see his safe space with Bobby. But it's fun and it's fast and it's beautiful

Like you said, the costumes, I've never worn costumes like that in my life. I was mesmerised by your outfits

I mean, you know, the dogs are the only ones who had better costumes than me. Which brings me on to, Robert, the dogs

I mean, I'm a huge animal lover. I love my dogs are everything to me

They're your dogs. Yes. I mean, what was that like, working with your dogs, so to speak

The problem was that there were a few of them and they were arguing with each other about who would get to see the director

And I had to be the mediator with all that. Something you'd never expect

People, yes, but the dogs. Jason Saznoff, one of the producers, Jason was talking

my girlfriend Tiffany was talking to hearing a conversation about the dogs

with Jason and Barry or Irwin and she said well what about our dogs

and blah blah blah so she got some pictures and showed them to Barry the way I think I remember it

and that's the way she's saying it and Barry said okay so then we were thinking

I was thinking well if the dogs it was written in the script as a dog

but if I'm taking the dogs now for a walk, a lot of people put coats on them

Well, that was just brilliant, wasn't it? So I said, well, you know, in that time, you know

these people, very possible they could say, let's put them in mink coats

And so that's how it started. So we went to a place which does, mink now of course is not you know but this place has permission to do things for movies and stuff like that so they made the coats

and the hats and stuff like that it is a brilliant scene

when I saw the dogs for the first time in the coats and I saw the

beret, too much I nearly fell to the floor, it was so brilliant

it was, it was but you know what, but it was perfect for the world, it was perfect

It was a moment. It really was. It was everything. The dogs not wanting to go, you pulling them

Ironically, they're yours, but they still didn't want to go with you. But also, I was like that through my hands

because I thought something was going to happen to the dogs. How many people have said that to you

No, that's interesting. Oh, my gosh, I thought someone's going to go for you. You sit on the bench

Yeah, yeah. I'm like going, no! I'm not meaning that I didn't want something to happen to you, Robert

No, no. You know, I was about the dog. Right, right, right. Right

Yeah, exactly. But it was a brilliant moment. It really was. And let me ask you, Deborah, you know, you've been in so many films

You've been, obviously, a wonderful series, Will and Grace, which I absolutely loved

And, yeah, I mean, you've worked with so many different people. You had Elton John on there and Cher

What was that period of your life like? That was really kind of surreal, you know

that was at, you know, our highest peak and, and everybody wanted to come on and play like Matt

Damon and Michael Douglas. And, and it was like, oh, who's, who's coming this week? And it just

felt like it felt very validating. Cause it was like, oh, they want to come and play in our

playground, you know, and they were, it was like, oh, they want to have fun. You know, they don't

they don't have this opportunity to just let it rip. And so it felt, we knew it was very special

It really was. And our listeners, they love Cher, Elton John. Oh, yeah

You know, they love all of those. What music do you listen to? Oh, well, my son is turning 21

and he is obsessed with the 80s. Well, this is great. He needs to switch over to Gold Radio

I will tell him to. Yeah, absolutely. And, Robert, I just want to clear something up

because actually we play a lot of the boss, Bruce Springsteen. Oh

I mean, how good is he? Okay, so we've read interviews with Martin Scorsese

that Bruce was perhaps the inspiration for the iconic line in Taxi Driver

Are you talking to me? Is that good? Are you talking to me? You talking to me

Is he Was he Do you know No no No we just we worked out the scene and I improvised that Marty remembers better but he wasn Bruce maybe in his head somewhere he thought of that

but no, it was just me doing this stuff in the mirror. He's just taking credit. Yeah

What a shame. No, but that's how it was. You like your music, Robert

Yeah, I like all kinds of music. I just... Everything. Now I'm starting to, for some reason

when I drive around New York, listen to Sinatra. or Tony Bennett or that period on Sirius

it's called Seriously Sinatra. Just for some reason, I don't know, maybe because I'm older

I'm getting sentimental about that type of music for now. I listen to Chill, I don't know

Gorgeous. And even Spa. Oh, I listen to Spa too. Is that like Chill

It's super chill. But that's what we need in life, isn't it? But no, I mean, Gold Radio, we do play a lot of nostalgic music

Yeah, yeah. As we do get older, I think we do want that. Yeah, absolutely

I mean, I think we'd all say that. And, Robert, you've worked with some of the best-known actors

and actresses, of course, but anyone that you haven't worked with that you'd like to work with that you could tell us about

No, not at this point. There's no one on your list, no

No, I mean, I take everything as it comes along. Do you know how many actors are going to be there being like

oh, he doesn't want to work with me? Not at all. But you never worked with Gene Hackman, did you

No, I didn't. And I wanted to... I hope you don't mind me asking. It's a story that's really saddened the world, you know

Oh, it's terrible. But, you know, it's a shame you never worked with Gene, right

I mean, he was an absolute legend. Legend. Yeah, he was great

We were doing a movie near where he lives. He lived in New Mexico

And we were trying to get together through a mutual person. and it just had gone away or something

It couldn't happen. This was about five years ago, so we never... We had had a dinner 20 years ago in Montreal

We were both doing a movie there. But, no, he was great

He was really great. Very sad story, yeah, absolutely. It was sad when that happened with his wife

Yeah. Well, listen, thank you so much for speaking to me, for speaking to us on Gold Radio

The films out on the 21st here in the UK were very... Are you excited? Very excited

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Big project for you guys. Well, thank you so much

Everyone needs to go and see it. It's amazing. The Alto Knights. Thank you