This is a nice, generic, hit-the-basic-points interview with Silver Linings Playbook costar Robert De Niro. A piece for someone who’s just arrived from the Planet Neptune and has never heard of DeNiro before. But honestly? I can’t stand the narration and the questions posed by interviewer Lee Cowan, and particularly his unctuous manner. His smile, his voice…I hate everything about this guy, including the fact that he’s the size of Richard Kiel.

If Cowan was interviewing me and he asked “are you a happy man?,” I’d tell him “Yeah, I am…or at least I was until I sat down with you.”

Actual Cowan question to DeNiro: “When people come up to you and describe you as a legend, how does that sit with you?” Actual DeNiro reply: “I don’t know what to say to that. I mean, I’m flattered but it’s…I don’t know. Imagined HE response if I was DeNiro: “People don’t come up to me and describe me as a legend. Or at least people who aren’t mental cases don’t. For the most part only corporate media toadies like you ask me stuff like that. Guys like you, junket whores…they love questions like this.

“‘Legend’ is a word that only big-media assholes use. Another word they use a lot is ‘genius.’ They also like ‘magic.’ That night be their most favorite word of all. A perfect sentence for a corporate asshole to say is ‘I just met a real genius….and what can I say? The man is a legend. Every time he gets up on the stage or steps in front of a camera, it’s magic.'”

In short I admire DeNiro’s restraint, his subtlety, his ability to suck it in and just play it nice and polite. Because I know what he’s really thinking.