'Robert De Niro is The Greatest Actor of His Generation' - Martin Scorcese

You don't collaborate with an actor time and again for several films over the years if you don't admire him, right? Martin Scorcese and Robert De Niro's collaborations have been legendary and it is no secret that Scorcese hails De Niro to be the greatest actor of his generation.

At the Variety Creative Impact Awards held Friday, Scorsese made note of the nine films he and De Niro have made together, adding that “God willing, we’re on the tenth, with Leo [DiCaprio].”

“We met when we were 16 years old,” Scorsese said of fellow New Yorker De Niro. “I think the first movie star I had worked with was Paul Newman in ‘The Color of Money.’ Before that…it was all just working with friends, almost like home movies…and that culminated in ‘The Irishman.’ It took us many years to figure out that was the picture we wanted to make.”

De Niro plied his trademark good-natured yet self-effacing humor when discussing his intricate make-up routine for playing mobster Frank Sheeran in “The Irishman. The aging process developed for ‘The Irishman’ means now I can play any age,” he said. “If they ever do a remake of ‘The Wizard of Oz’ I would kill as Dorothy: ‘Toto, I don’t think we’re in Kansas anymore.’ OK, I’ll work on the voice.”

De Niro called working on ‘The Irishman’ a “homecoming for me.”

“I was making a movie with my best friends,” he said, referring to co-stars like Joe Pesci. “When I think about it I can’t believe how f—ing old these guys are. You can’t de-age friendships. We spent 108 shooting days [on ‘The Irishman’]; I wish we could have shot for 108 more. Marty, can we do some reshoots?”

Of the filmmaking process, he continued, “You don’t do it alone. … And it wouldn’t be any fun if you did do it alone.”

Well, we just hope this collaboration somehow never stops!