De Niro an ‘Intern’ at age 72
NEW YORK — At 72, Robert De Niro proves he’s still got the right stuff as he plays a plucky retiree in “The Intern.”
“Yeah, you could say it’s Nancy Meyers’ love letter to guys of our generation. And it’s fun,” the Oscar-winning icon said of this latest comedy from the “Something’s Gotta Give” and “It’s Complicated” writer/director.
“I hope,” De Niro continued, “the movie is seen by a lot of people because we do tend to feel that when you’re a certain age, when you get older, you’re less relevant in some ways — and that’s just not the case.
“There are people who are just aware and sensitive to that when they’re younger and realize that. And when you get there, you certainly know it. And sometimes you don’t know until you get there.
“There’s a lot of people who are there,” he concluded, “so hopefully they’ll see the movie.”
With De Niro co-starring with Anne Hathaway, a natural assumption would have her as the intern — maybe a continuation of her “The Devil Wears Prada.”
But Hathaway’s Jules created and runs an e-commerce business with 200 employees in trendy Brooklyn, and De Niro’s retired widower Ben is hired because it seems like a good social media step for the company.
“Nancy deals with what’s going on today, and the whole flipped part of it, me being the intern,” De Niro said, “is what makes it more interesting and fun.”
For De Niro, “Intern” was a return not just to a leading role but a leisurely shoot.
“I’m used to doing movies that took as much time as our movie did, which was about 15 weeks.
“These days, movies don’t have the luxury of extremely long schedules or (high) budgets. But Nancy was very specific about what she wanted. We’d do a lot of takes at times but for good reason, and it was terrific, bottom line.”
(“The Intern” opens Friday.)