Robert De Niro has countless stories from his legendary career, but on Wednesday night, he had no recollection of the ones Stephen Colbert tried to prompt him to tell — which in turn prompted the CBS host to simply rip up his notecards.
De Niro stopped by “The Late Show” in support of his new Netflix series “Zero Day,” in which he plays a former president called back in to serve his country after a massive cyberattack. But, before Colbert got into the series, he first noted that this year marks the 40th anniversary of De Niro’s film “Brazil.”
“I understand that it almost didn’t get released, and that you had something to do with making that happen,” Colbert prompted.
De Niro noted that Colbert’s producer Neil Goldman told him that just prior to the show, but admitted, “I don’t remember that.”
“So maybe I should have Neil out here to tell the story,” Colbert joked, earning a chuckle from De Niro.
“I don’t know! He said that I was on some talk show with Terry Gilliam, who was great, I like Terry very much,” De Niro explained. “But I didn’t know that they had such problems with getting it up and running and so on, which happens, you know.”
Colbert quipped back that his producer “told the story better” before attempting to move onto another story about the film. The host noted that Jonathan Pryce, the actor’s co-star in the film, said that De Niro was actually responsible for getting Pryce the role.
“I didn’t know that either,” De Niro replied. And at that, Colbert took a deep breath, looked down the camera, and tore up his notecards. Throwing his hands up in the air, he told De Niro they’d just move on, but applauded the move anyway.
“You’ve helped a lot of people over the years, yeah. You’re not helping me right now, but you’ve helped a lot of people,” Colbert joked.
From there, he sent the show to commercial break, and you can watch it all unfold in the video above. When they returned, Colbert could be heard telling De Niro “I promise, not much longer. I promise.” At that point, they got into discussing “Zero Day” and, as always, played a clip.
But, when Colbert asked De Niro if there was anything to know about the clip, De Niro bluntly replied, “No.”
“OK!” Colbert answered with a sigh and a chuckle. “I disagree!” So, the host set up the clip himself.
You can watch Colbert’s full interview with Robert De Niro in the videos, above.
The post Stephen Colbert Rips Up Notes When Robert De Niro Doesn’t Remember Prepped Anecdotes | Video appeared first on TheWrap.