Do we like Robert De Niro?
Our score: 7 out of 10. Decent record and plainly on the right side, with one real stain: his company lost a discrimination case, though he wasn't found personally liable.
Born in New York City in 1943 to two artists, De Niro caught the acting bug at about ten. He trained under Lee Strasberg and at the Stella Adler Studio, then worked off-Broadway before Mean Streets in 1973 started his long run with Martin Scorsese. Two Oscars followed, for The Godfather Part II and Raging Bull, and later the Meet the Parents comedies made him a household name for a whole new crowd.
The stain is a 2023 workplace case. A New York jury found his company, Canal Productions, liable for gender discrimination and retaliation and ordered it to pay more than $1.2 million, but did not find De Niro personally liable for the alleged abuse. The jury also rejected the company's own $6 million counterclaims. He testified “I was never abusive, ever,” and his lawyer said he was absolved. I couldn't find what happened after the verdict, so treat the final payout as unconfirmed.
On the harm check, nothing nasty turned up. We found no remarks against LGBTQ+ people, women, migrants or public health, and PinkNews calls him an LGBTQ+ ally. In 2018 he used a Dubai summit to attack the Trump administration's climate stance, saying the US was suffering from “temporary insanity”. Where you land on his tone depends on whether you read it as honest anger or theatre, but it isn't harm.
His recent work looks ordinary too. The Whisper Man, a Netflix crime thriller with Adam Scott and Michelle Monaghan, arrived this August. Focker-in-Law, the fourth Meet the Parents film with Ben Stiller, is due this month. Nothing in that company raised a flag.
This year he has been in a stoush with Trump. In February he headlined the “State of the Swamp” counter-event in Washington and said he felt “betrayed by my country”. Trump then called him “sick and demented” on Truth Social and seemed to float deporting him, even though De Niro is a US citizen. That is abuse aimed at De Niro, and it counts neither for nor against him.
In September he doubled down, saying of Trump “We have to stop him. It's insane,” and calling Musk “a monster”. He also backed New York mayor Zohran Mamdani's right to attend the 9/11 memorial, despite a petition against it. The harm test judges harm, not party, and political anger isn't harm; plenty will cheer it and plenty won't.