robert de niro played vito corleone in the godfather.
who does robert de niro play in the godfather?
vito corleone
in 1976, de niro appeared in "1900", bernardo bertolucci's biographical exploration of life in italy before world war ii, seen through the eyes of two italian childhood friends at the opposite sides of society's hierarchy. he also starred in "the last tycoon" (1976), directed by elia kazan. kazan recalls that de niro "would do almost anything to succeed" and noted that he cut his weight down from 170 to 128 pounds for the role in this film. kazan adds that de niro "is one of a select number of actors i've directed who work hard at their trade, and the only one who asked to rehearse on sundays. most of the others play tennis. bobby and i would go over the scenes to be shot. bobby is more meticulous... he's very imaginative. he's very precise. he figures everything out both inside and outside. he has good emotion. he's a character actor: everything he does he calculates. in a good way, but he calculates." kazan developed and used those personality traits for his character in the film. and although the film did poorly at the box office, reviewers praised de niro's acting. film critic marie brenner wrote that "for de niro, it is a role that surpasses even his brilliant and daring portrayal of vito corleone in "the godfather part ii"... his performance deserves to be compared with the very finest".
robert de niro
upon the suggestion of universal studios, roach cast de niro in the role of jack byrnes due to critical acclaim of de niro's recent comedy work in films such as "analyze this" and in the live-action/animated film "the adventures of rocky and bullwinkle". de niro's character jack byrnes is pam's father and a retired cia operative who is overly protective of his family and has a hard time warming up to his daughters' love interests. the script was not written with de niro in mind as jack byrnes; the first draft of the script was completed in 1996, three years before de niro appeared in "analyze this". however, shortly after de niro finished filming "the adventures of rocky and bullwinkle", universal suggested to roach that he should cast de niro for the role to which roach agrees that he had "no reservations whatsoever." in an interview with "entertainment weekly", de niro stated that he was in active pursuit of comedic roles since "analyze this". admitting that he had initial reservations about starring in "meet the parents", de niro said that he felt "pushed into it" due to insistence by jane rosenthal—de niro's partner in tribeca productions who also acted as one of the producers of "meet the parents". screenwriter jim herzfeld and director jay roach both confirmed that, after committing to the project and reviewing the script, robert de niro was actually the person who came up with the idea for the famous polygraph test scene. asked about working with de niro given the serious nature of his previous roles, ben stiller said that "it was a little bit intimidating working with de niro" but that he "has a great sense of humor and i think that's the biggest surprise about him."
meet the parents