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De Niro Sorry for Italy Diss
Those Italians looking for Robert De Niro to put in some face time to his family's homeland can fuhgeddaboudit.
The two-time Oscar winner has become anything but a favorite son after dissing the country twice in as many days. First, he bowed out of receiving an important award in Milan on Thursday. Then, he skipped out of news conference in Rome on Friday.
De Niro had been tapped to receive the Golden Ambrosius award, Milan's highest honor. But it was apparently an offer he could refuse, because he skipped out on the ceremony Thursday, ticking off many locals. He also bailed on a Friday news conference in Rome highligting a new Italian showcase in his New York-based Tribecca Film Festival.
De Niro's rep released a statement from De Niro late Friday saying the whole thing was a big mix-up. "Everyone went into this with the best of intentions, but somewhere along the line serious communications problems created unfortunate misunderstanding," De Niro said.
"It was a complicated situation," the actor continued, "and I'm not sure how it was handled at their end, but it certainly wasn't handled properly at mine."
"The last thing I would want to do is to offend anyone...I love Italy," he said.
A local Rome official, Enrico Gasbarra, earlier said that he believed De Niro nixed the Rome appearance due to the Ambrosius flap in Milan. "De Niro was embittered by yesterday's controversy and believed it opportune not to eclipse the important agreement with the province of Rome," Gasbarra told reporters, per the Associated Press.
But some Italians also speculated that De Niro's no-show two-fer was the result of a some flak Stateside over De Niro's latest film, DreamWorks' animated Shark Tale.
Several groups, led by the Columbus Citizens Foundation, blasted the film for stereotyping Italian-Americans as thugs and mobsters. De Niro, who voices a Godfather-esque shark named Don Lino, was singled out by the foundation's president, who said the actor "is the Italian-American equivalent of Uncle Tom" and has "profited from negative stereotypes of Italian-Americans for years."
"Imbeciles," Italian travel magazine editor Giulia Riccardo sniffed to Reuters about the complaints. "We Italians love De Niro."
De Niro said he shares the warm feelings for his family's original stomping grounds and he intends to work to strengthen his partnership with Italian filmmakers.
"I love Italy. I love going there and look forward to returning," De Niro said in his statement, "and I look forward to Tribeca's partnership with Prada in Milan and the Province of Rome."
This is now the third time the actor has hit a snag in Italian relations. He was supposed to receive honorary citizenship during September's Venice International Film Festival. But the honor was delayed after the Order Sons of Italy in the United States wrote to the government and asked to reconsider the award. While government officials said De Niro was still going to be conferred honorary citizenship, no make up date has been set.
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