Robert De Niro paid for his own extreme body transformation in menacing role for ‘brutal’ psychological thriller
Actors will do all kind of bizarre things in order to get things just right for a film role.
Whether it be Christian Bale losing 60 pounds for The Machinist, Shia LaBeouf pulling out his tooth in Fury, or even Robert De Niro packing on 60 pounds of muscle for his role in Raging Bulls, actors will do all kinds of things to their bodies.
This is not, however, even the maddest thing that De Niro has ever done to himself to get in the right place physically for a film role as he once paid for an extreme body transformation.
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The legendary actor appeared in Cape Fear in 1991, a Martin Scorsese thriller about a menacing psychopath let loose after 14 years in prison for rape.
His character, Max Cady, hunts down the lawyer who defended him in his trial and goes after him and his family.
De Niro was nominated for an Oscar for Best Actor for his chilling performance, losing out only to a legendary role from Anthony Hopkins, Silence of the Lambs.
But it turns out De Niro went to some extreme lengths to get into character for Cape Fear.
Yep, the actor paid $5,000 (just over £4,000) to have his real teeth filed down for the role.
This was done to make him seem more menacing and unsettling, something which anyone who has seen the film can absolutely tell you he achieved.
The star didn’t stop there though, working out on a specific routine to give him ‘prison muscles’ as well as using temporary tattoos all over his body.
An expert used vegetable dyes which stayed on De Niro’s skin for months.
After filming finished on the Scorsese flick the actor then had to pay five times the original sum ($20,000 for the mathematically challenged amongst us) in order to get his teeth back to normal.
It’s safe to say it paid off though as the Robert De Niro thriller is widely regarded as an absolute classic.
Legendary late film critic Roger Ebert gave the film three stars, saying in his review: “With this new version of Max Cady, Scorsese gives us not simply a bad man, but an evil one.”
Victoria Luxford wrote for BBC.com in 2023 regarding the film, saying: “(De Niro) had played a tough guy before, but never quite like this: a very sinister, very jagged, very dangerous character.
"Put that together with Martin Scorsese at possibly the peak of his powers, and it’s a delightful if slightly scary film.”
Vincent Canby of the New York Times said in their review of the film: “Stay away if you're squeamish but, if you do, you'll miss an essential work by one of our masters, as well as two of the year's most accomplished performances, those of Mr. De Niro and Ms. Lewis.”
De Niro is set to appear in his first ever TV show later this month, Netflix's Zero Day, which premieres February 20, 2025.
Cape Fear is available to purchase in the Apple store.
Topics: Robert De Niro, Oscars, Netflix, TV and Film, Film, Celebrity
Michael Slavin