Jodie Foster dachte, Robert De Niro sei „wirklich uninteressant“, als sie sich zum ersten Mal in „Taxi Driver“ trafen: „Ich erinnere mich, dass ich dachte: Was ist los?“ aber dann „öffnete er mir die Augen dafür, was Schauspielerei sein könnte“

> “We’d run the lines and run the lines a second and third time. And I’m sure maybe some of you have been here when Robert De Niro was here. One of our greatest American actors, so proud to have worked with him — not the most interesting person on earth,” Foster continued. “And at that time, he was very much in character, the way he was in those days. So he was really uninteresting and I remember having these lunches with him and being like, what is happening? When can I go home? And he wouldn’t really be able to talk to me, so I would talk to the waiters and the people in the restaurants.”

> But Foster and De Niro had a breakthrough when he let her into his preparation process. “He finally walked me through improvisation by the time we had our third lunch together, and it opened my eyes to what acting could be,” Foster said. “And I realized at 12, ‘Oh, it’s my fault because I haven’t brought enough to the table.’ I’ve just been saying lines and waiting for my next line and acting naturally, but building a character is something different. And I remember how excited I was, I remember being kind of sweaty and excited and giggly and coming back up into the hotel room to meet my mom and saying, ‘I’ve had this epiphany.’ And I think from there, everything changed.”

De Niro has always come across as a shy or at least reticent person in basically every scenario. I’m inclined to think, as Jodie apparently is, that this was De Niro being the same guy he is around everyone, just a taciturn guy who only speaks up when he feels compelled to.