who does robert de niro play in the godfather
Vito Corleone
title: Robert De Niro text: Robert De Niro Robert Anthony De Niro Jr. (; born August 17, 1943) is an American actor, producer, and director. He is a recipient of various accolades, including two Academy Awards, a Golden Globe Award, the Cecil B DeMille Award, AFI Life Achievement Award, Presidential Medal of Freedom, and has been nominated for six BAFTA Awards, two Primetime Emmy Awards and four Screen Actors Guild Awards. De Niro was cast as the young Vito Corleone in the 1974 film "The Godfather Part II", for which he won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. His longtime collaboration with director Martin title: Robert De Niro text: Brian De Palma's 1963 film "The Wedding Party", but the film was not released until 1969. He then appeared in Roger Corman's film "Bloody Mama" (1970). He gained popular attention with his role as a dying Major League Baseball player in "Bang the Drum Slowly" (1973) and began his collaboration with Martin Scorsese when he played the small-time criminal Johnny Boy in "Mean Streets" (1973). De Niro had a pivotal role in the Francis Ford Coppola film "The Godfather Part II" (1974), playing the young Vito Corleone. Coppola had remembered his previous auditions for the roles of Sonny Corleone, Michael title: Robert De Niro text: to fully realize the character being portrayed. He is praised for his commitment to roles; he gained 60 lb (27 kg) and learned how to box for his role as Jake LaMotta in "Raging Bull", ground his teeth down for "Cape Fear", lived in Sicily for "The Godfather Part II", worked as a cab driver for a few weeks for "Taxi Driver", and learned to play the saxophone for "New York, New York". He again put on weight for his performance as Al Capone in "The Untouchables". De Niro's brand of acting includes employing whatever extreme tactic he feels is title: Robert De Niro text: Corleone, Carlo Rizzi, and Paulie Gatto in "The Godfather". His performance earned him his first Academy Award, for Best Supporting Actor, although Coppola accepted the award as De Niro was not present at the ceremony. De Niro became the first actor to win an Academy Award speaking mainly a foreign language. In this case, several Sicilian dialects, although he delivered a few lines in English. He and Marlon Brando, who played the older Vito Corleone in the first film, are the only actors to have won Oscars for portraying the same fictional character. After working with Scorsese in "Mean Streets", title: Robert De Niro text: Festival in 1997, he was awarded an Honorable Prize for contribution to cinema. De Niro would reference "In the Line of Fire", along with "Dirty Harry" (1971) and "Magnum Force" (1973), two more of Eastwood's films, in "Righteous Kill" (2008). He also appeared in the crime drama "Cop Land" (1997). He starred in the police action-thriller "Heat" (1995), along with fellow actor and long-time friend, Al Pacino. The duo drew much attention from fans, as both have generally been compared throughout their careers. Though Pacino and De Niro both starred in "The Godfather Part II" (1974), they shared no screen