The veteran actor on getting a bomb in the mail, playing angry men, and denouncing Donald Trump

Robert De Niro, famously a man of few words, has directed some very strong language at Donald Trump over the past two years, calling him terms like “punk,” “dog,” “pig,” “con,” “bullshit artist,” “mutt,” “idiot,” “national disaster,” “embarrassment,” “disgrace,” “fool,” “bozo,” and “Jerkoff-in-Chief.” In response, Trump has labeled De Niro “a very Low IQ individual.”

De Niro’s feud with Trump isn’t his only activity: he has starred in over two dozen movies in the last decade, including HBO’s “The Wizard of Lies” and the comedy “Dirty Grandpa.” He recently completed his ninth film with Martin Scorsese, “The Irishman,” in which he plays the hitman who killed Jimmy Hoffa. Additionally, he co-founded the Tribeca Film Festival, now in its eighteenth year, and regularly appears as Robert Mueller on “Saturday Night Live.”

I met with De Niro in his office at the Tribeca Film Center, located in a part of downtown Manhattan known as Bob Row, where he co-owns the restaurants Nobu and Tribeca Grill. The office is filled with memorabilia, including a call sheet from “A Bronx Tale,” a framed dagger from Kuwait, and an oil portrait of his father, the painter Robert De Niro, Sr. These offices were also where a suspicious package containing a pipe bomb was sent to De Niro on October 25th, part of a series of bombs sent to high-profile Democrats and critics of Trump. As he sipped tomato soup, we discussed the incident. A week later, we continued our conversation over the phone. The following has been edited for clarity and condensed.

When did you find out about the bomb? Where were you?

I was at home, working out. I got an early morning call about it being in the office.

What went through your head?

There are so many crazy people out there. The country’s state is terrible now, with someone who sets a bad example of behavior. I’m waiting for the bad dream to end. What can I do?

How much blame do you place on the President for something like that happening?

I think, on a subconscious or subliminal level, and in many other ways, he gives the okay to people who might already be on the verge of such thoughts. I hoped that once he became President, he might change, being a New Yorker. But he’s been worse than I imagined. He has no plan, no center. Even gangsters have a code. He doesn’t. He thinks he’s slick. There’s something wrong with him mentally.

It’s interesting that you compare him to a slick mobster guy—

He thinks he’s a mobster. He’s a mutt. Everything he says about others—that they’re losers, and so on—he’s really talking about himself. I don’t know what his parents did to him, but it’s all projection.

A lot of people who admire him might also admire you, even just demographically. Older white men tend to like Trump. They might see in him traits they see in Vito Corleone or Jake LaMotta, tough guys who don’t take any nonsense.

There’s a difference. He pretends to represent that type, probably from that stupid show he did, which many people believed. There was a documentary about two writers who created his whole image for “The Apprentice.” Now, he has to make real decisions. I don’t know if I’m answering your question, but people who like my characters should remember that I’m an actor. Those are just characters I play.

Interview with Robert De Niro: On Trump, Politics, and Personal Reflections

Have you seen any kind of backlash from your fans, people who are Trump supporters?

No. I can’t worry about that.

Did you ever interact with him personally over the years?

I met him once at a baseball game.

What happened?

I was there with a few of my kids. He came into the box that I was in, said hello, and we shook hands. I never wanted to meet him. Because I think everybody’s onto what he’s about. What amazes me is that people buy into it—people who have a responsibility to the country, not to him. They have gone along with this. And we all know who they are. Republicans who can go into the private sector and get a job making more money in a law firm or something. Instead, they opt to stay in this situation with a criminal and sell themselves. And everyone who’s involved with him has been tainted, and people will never forget it. The only one is Mattis, a little bit, and he stumbled the other day when he went down to the Mexican border and tried to give a Pancho Villa story. I felt bad because I have great respect for him, and we all do.

And now he’s gone.

Yeah, I don’t blame him. It’s dangerous that he left. We’re in a crisis in this country. We have a fool running it, and, when a guy like Mattis finally has to go, we have a lot to be concerned about. I don’t see how we can go two more years with this guy.

I assume that the reason the person sent you a bomb was because of what you said at the Tony Awards, which was not what I expected to happen at the Tony Awards. Was that a decision you made beforehand, or was it impromptu, to say, “Fuck Trump”?

It was impromptu. I feel that more people should speak out against him and not be genteel about it. At Tribeca, I said, “I’m tired of being nice about it.” They have ads on CNN about truth. “This is a banana, this is an apple,” or whatever they have. That’s what we’ve come to with all the “fake news” stuff.

How did your role as Robert Mueller on “Saturday Night Live” come about?

Actually, my wife, who—we’re [searches for the word and pulls his hands apart] separating now—but she had thought of it. I said, “What can I play on ‘S.N.L.’?” Because I love “S.N.L.” And she came up with Mueller. So I told Lorne Michaels. This is how I remember it—I could be wrong.

Is there a key to playing Mueller?

Mueller is the hope. Mueller is our hope. And he’s doing everything—he’s doing it perfectly.

But he’s not someone who’s seen in public very much these days. How did you decide to play him?

I didn’t. It’s a skit—the makeup and everything. They put jowls and prosthetics on, the chin, the nose, eyebrow.

Did you grow up in a political household?

Not really. Some, but not much.

What was your experience of the antiwar movement, the politics of the late sixties, early seventies?

I felt that the war was not a just war. And, you know, it was a turbulent time in America, as I think it is now. It might even be worse now.

Did your parents have a particular kind of politics that they spoke to you about?

My mother was a little more leaning toward the left, in some ways, but never telling me much. My father was an artist. He was apolitical, pretty much.

I loved the documentary you participated in a couple of years ago about your father. I didn’t realize that your parents were both very well-regarded artists who were exhibited by Peggy Guggenheim and were of the same milieu as people like Jackson Pollock and Mark Rothko. They’re mentioned in the same circle as Anaïs Nin, Henry Miller, Tennessee Williams. Did you know those people growing up in Greenwich Village?

No, I was just a young kid. I was there but not really there, not exposed to it. Then my mother and my father, they split up. My father went off.

I read that they both wrote erotica for Anaïs Nin?

They might have. I heard that, yeah.

You haven’t read it?

No.

The image I had of your childhood was all about roaming around Little Italy and being in a street gang on Kenmare Street. Was that a contradiction, that you had parents who were part of this downtown intelligentsia?

That was one part. They were both parts of my life when I was a kid.

Were you rebelling?

Probably, in some way. Who knows. It was a good part of my life. I wasn’t, like, rebelling. That’s where I felt comfortable.

It seems like the purpose of the documentary was to help reintroduce people to your father’s work and revive his reputation as an artist.

I wanted to make a documentary about him so that my kids could see what their grandfather did and be aware of all the art that he’s done. He was prolific. I have it around in many places in my house, of course.

I was also very interested in the fact that he was a gay man living in the pre-Stonewall era. Do you know if he ever found romantic fulfillment?

No, I don’t know. He didn’t expose me to that. There was somebody I met one time in Europe, but other than that—and I wasn’t sure even with that person.

What was your understanding as a child of him being gay? Do you remember figuring that out?

I didn’t figure it out. I didn’t know. I think my mother told me later. And then I guess I said, “Well, O.K.”

At what point in your life was this?

I guess in my late twenties, early thirties. He didn’t sit me down and say, “I’m gay,” a heart-to-heart father-son conversation about it. He just wasn’t that kind of person.

That was around when you were making movies like “Mean Streets,” which has that scene of a flamboyant gay man screaming come-ons to people on the street from a car window. How did your father’s sexuality resonate with you as a young man who was coming into his own as an actor and as an adult?

I just didn’t think much about it, really, other than that’s what it was. He was always very much to himself. So I didn’t ask any questions.

In the documentary, he comes across as someone who got really lost in his work. Do you feel you’re like that? Do you see parallels?

Yeah, there are certain things. My impression was, he’d be very cynical about people and certain affectations they’d put on. I thought it was funny. As you get older, you realize you do more things like your parents than you realize, things I do now that my mother used to do.

Like what?

I like to read the paper a lot. She always would do that. Lately, with all the—not to get back on Trump, but I’ll say this—before he got elected, I thought, He’s going to claim that he “shook it up.” Oh, he did shake it up. He made us much more aware, and there should be more courses in school with kids knowing the basics of what our country is about.