Yes, they’re talking to you: AFI honors De Niro

In an evening filled with respect, sentimentality and much R-rated humor, Robert De Niro received the American Film Institute’s 31st annual Life Achievement Award Thursday evening at the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood.

The 59-year-old actor, who won Oscars for “The Godfather Part II” and “Raging Bull” and who’s widely considered the greatest actor of his generation, joins the ranks of such Hollywood actors and directors as John Ford, Sidney Poitier, Tom Hanks, Barbra Streisand, Billy Wilder and Gregory Peck who have previously received the AFI honor over the past three decades.

De Niro, who has let his characters primarily do his talking during his 30-year-plus career, seemed uncomfortable with all the attention and praise being heaped upon him from such friends and collaborators as director Martin Scorsese and actors Joe Pesci, Harvey Keitel, Sean Penn, Leonardo DiCaprio and Edward Norton. But he seemed genuinely touched when he accepted the honor from Scorsese, with whom he has made eight films, including “Mean Streets,” “Taxi Driver,” “GoodFellas” and “Raging Bull.”

“It’s been a terrific night,” said the actor. “It wasn’t so bad. Maybe I’ve gotten older.... “ Looking over at Scorsese, a previous AFI recipient, De Niro added: “Marty, you are so special to me.”

In taped interviews, De Niro spoke thoughtfully, often movingly, about some of his great roles. At one point, speaking of a scene in Michael Cimino’s “Deer Hunter,” when his character returns from Vietnam to visit his paralyzed friend in the hospital, the actor burst into tears.

Though the AFI ceremony is one of the biggest events in Hollywood, this year’s festivities were definitely of a New York state of mind. At one point in the evening Robin Williams joked that the dais looked like “the last supper in Little Italy.”

Billy Crystal, who appeared with De Niro in the comedies “Analyze This” and “Analyze That,” remarked that people always want to know what he calls the actor. Crystal joked that people who know him call him Bob. Bobby is used by “movie executives who have never met him and Mr. De Niro is what they call him when they meet him.”

And on a serious note, Crystal told the actor: “Thank you for making me a better actor.”

Friend and frequent co-star Keitel told the audience that De Niro is a “guide and a role model for a generation of people” -- a theme that played out throughout the night. Norton, who worked with his idol in “The Score,” described De Niro as the “e.e. cummings of acting” due to his economy of style. “I dreamed of working with De Niro,” he said. “He set a standard we all aspired to.”

Jodie Foster, who co-starred at age 12 with De Niro in “Taxi Driver” as a young prostitute, recalled before production began this “strange man” would pick her up at her hotel every morning and have breakfast with her. “He was not about to talk,” she said, smiling. But there was a method to De Niro’s madness, Foster added. “He introduced me to the craft of acting. He taught me how to build a character. You make a great Henry Higgins.”

The taped interviews interspersed among tributes, the actor opened up and offered insight into how he prepares his parts, from making long, copious notes in his scripts to, in the case of “The Godfather Part II,” traveling to Sicily and taping examples of the 14 dialects of the region.

Williams, who co-starred with De Niro in “Awakenings,” brought down the house with his rapid-fire one-liners describing the disheveled, mustached actor as resembling Saddam Hussein and that Scorsese’s bushy eyebrows actually played the role of De Niro’s Mohawk hairdo in “Taxi Driver.”

“Once Upon a Time in America” co-star James Woods proclaimed: “Bob, as an actor you stink! Let’s talk about ‘Rocky & Bullwinkle,’ ” referring to one of the actor’s lesser films of recent years. Woods then introduced a clip from a long-forgotten 1971 film called “Jennifer on My Mind,” in which De Niro played a dope-loving gypsy cabdriver.

After 2 1/2 hours of tributes and a performance by Beyonce Knowles of “New York, New York,” Scorsese finally took the stage to give his friend the AFI honor. “He has an extraordinary genius to transform himself ... to be the character,” said the director. “He never judges his character. He’s a good man.”

The evening was also marked with sadness as AFI director and Chief Executive Jean Picker Firstenberg told the crowd that former AFI winner Gregory Peck had died earlier in the morning at age 87. And as De Niro, who worked with Peck in “Cape Fear,” bid the crowd “goodnight,” he looked up at the heavens and added “Goodnight, Gregory Peck.”

The De Niro tribute will be telecast June 23 on USA Network.