De Niro spent years crafting his ‘Comedian’
NEW YORK — It took eight years, countless script revisions and a revolving door of directors (including Sean Penn) before Robert De Niro was able to get his passion project, “The Comedian,” to the screen.
“That happens,” De Niro acknowledged. “This movie I’m doing with (Martin) Scorsese, ‘The Irishman,’ we’ve been doing that about the same amount of time. That’s what happens.”
“The Comedian” began with what seemed like the simplest of premises.
“I love comedians. I thought this was a chance to play a character who says crazy things,” De Niro, 73, said.
“But the whole trick of course is to make the things he says funny — and that’s a whole different thing.”
De Niro is Jackie Burke, a stand-up with an aggressive, ribald and often controversial personality. Thirty years earlier, Jackie had a career-defining sitcom hit — and that moronic but beloved character has stuck with him ever since.
Jackie’s resentment of his fans, who refuse to move on, fuels enough anger to land him in jail, do community service and even become a viral sensation with a series of outrageous rants.
Although the picture had gone through a stable of screenwriters — four are credited — De Niro revealed they never stopped trying to make sure it was right during the New York and Florida filming.
“We were being pushed and pulled in different directions, and we finally got back on track where we should have been with what it was originally about,” he said.
After years creating a character, are there any surprises actually doing it?
“I was surprised every day! I didn’t know what the hell I was doing,” De Niro said.
“There was a lot of just trying to figure things out. Getting ready to do it, I had to know certain things. Other scenes were not improvised exactly, but you have to have something that’s good enough to say or do to move the story forward. That was the constant task, if you will.
“One of the tough scenes we had was going to Leslie Mann’s apartment, where I’m talking about my son. We were shooting at two or three in the morning. It was just hell, and we had to wend our way through so it makes sense.”