Robert De Niro talks about his role as crooked financier Bernie Madoff.

Robert De Niro (below) talks about his role as bent financier Bernie Madoff in the new SoHo film Wizard Of Lies. The drama also stars Michelle Pfeiffer (right) as Madoff’s wife, Diane, with Hank Azaria his right-hand man Frank DiPascali. Julie Eley repor

Financial wizard’s tricks exposed:

Robert De Niro has become famous for cranking out comedies in recent years but his latest outing won’t make many people laugh.

He plays Bernie Madoff, the crooked New York financier who tricked investors out of $65 billion in a massive Ponzi scheme, in the new Soho film Wizard Of Lies.

De Niro, whose recent cinema outings include Dirty Grandpa,

Last Vegas and The Intern, shaved off the front of his hair to make himself look more like his character, but getting inside his head was a different matter.

“What he (Bernie Madoff) did is beyond my comprehension,” says the Italian American actor.

“There’s a disconnect somehow in him I still would like to understand. I did as best as I could but I don’t understand.

“The only things I do feel strongly about is that he didn’t tell his kids and he didn’t tell his wife. But everyone around him probably had an idea.

“They just didn’t want to look too deeply because they knew something wasn’t quite right.”

As for the investors, “They were getting a certain amount of money in return,” says De Niro. “Why look

too closely? It’s OK. That, I feel, is a certain kind of complicitness.”

Madoff’s world came crashing down in December 2008 when his sons reported him to federal authorities after their father finally told them the extent of his fraud.

He is now serving a 150-year jail term after pleading guilty to 11 felonies.

Among his celebrity clients were Steven Spielberg, John Malkovich, Kevin Bacon and Kyra Sedgwick. But how did Madoff manage to fool so many people for so long?

According to 73-year-old De Niro, “He’s a classic example of somebody who receded very much back, let people come to him and got into a position where people would think it’s an honour to be ... for him to take their money. And that’s a classic con situation, or whatever you want, that you see in all forms of life.”

One person taken in by Madoff was New York Times reporter Diana Henriques who is a consultant on

Wizard Of Lies, which is based on her book of the same name.

“The stature Madoff had in the financial world, I can attest to,” she says. “He was a source of mine for decades before he got arrested.

“The respect and admiration he had, the success he seemed to project and the fact that his legitimate business firm was a huge success, cutting edge, is everything.

“So you put all that together and it isn’t crazy to trust Bernie Madoff. It wasn’t a leap of faith. It wasn’t an act of greed by any means.”

Henriques had access to Madoff in jail for her book, something De Niro, who never met the shady financier, was quick to take advantage of.

“Bob, if anyone knows anything about his preparation, he’s a vacuum cleaner,” Henriques says.

“By the time we actually wound up on the set, he had just about learned everything I could possibly tell him about Bernie. But even through the filming there would be moments where he would go, ‘Is this right with the hands?’ that kind of thing, down to excruciating details. It was really an unforgettable experience to see Robert De Niro so totally occupy the character.” She even improvised scenes with De Niro in which he played Madoff and she played herself.

“I’m making up questions, these are the questions I really would have put to Bernie Madoff if I got another shot at him, but Bob is answering those questions as Bernie Madoff – utterly convincing.

“The primary difference between interviewing Bernie in prison and interviewing Bob as Bernie in prison is I got a lot more takes in the second version.

“I only got one take with each interview with Bernie and then the prison authorities scooted me out the door.”

But as to what drove Madoff, De Niro believes the answer might lie in his background. The grandson of emigrants whose father was a plumber turned stockbroker, Madoff was not from the old-money world of high finance.

“He wanted to be part of that world but he wasn’t,” says De Niro. “He was just another person who was not on the level. Not a thug, but a hood or somebody who tries to get over on people because they don’t really feel as equals to them.”

“The only things I do feel strongly about is that he didn’t tell his kids and he didn’t tell his wife. But everyone around him probably had an idea.” – Robert De Niro