Robert De Niro to N.Y. Times‘ David Marchese: “This actor can’t remember lines, so he can’t get a job. A director he knows runs into him at the gas station where he’s working. The director says, ‘I have a play that in the third act, what you do is go and say, ‘Hark, I hear the cannons roar.’ Can I count on you to do that?” The actor says he’ll do it. He goes and rehearses, rehearses, rehearses. ‘Hark, I hear the cannons roar. Hark, I hear the cannons roar.’ On the day of the play, the third act comes and the actor runs out onstage. The cannon goes BOOM! and the actor goes, ‘The fuck was that?!'”
