09 October 2016
The Hollywood legend is in Dubai to persuade Middle Eastern investors to back his latest project, a luxury resort in the Caribbean.

By Shane McGinley

Robert De Niro is a notoriously difficult interviewee, usually offering monosyllabic responses to eager showbiz reporters looking for a soundbite to promote the actor’s latest release.

But sitting on a leather couch in the opulent surroundings of a suite in the Palazzo Versace resort in Dubai, the 73-year-old Hollywood icon is in chatty, upbeat mood.

The reason may be that this is not De Niro the Academy Award winner and star of classic such as ‘The Godfather Part II’, ‘Taxi Driver’, ‘The Deer Hunter’ or ‘Goodfellas’, but De Niro the venture capitalist and De Niro the businessman.

He has teamed up with Australian billionaire James Packer to develop a resort on the Caribbean island state of Antigua and Barbuda and while he is putting his own box office-earned dollars into the project, he is looking for investment from the Middle East to help make it a reality.

“I love the property, the place, the island,” he told Zawya in an interview in his suite. “It is a lot of work to do this kind of thing but the place is so great and I always thought you know one day I’d like to do a resort if I could find the right place. The kind of place I would like to go to.

“I have been to a lot of places around the world so that is how it started. I found this place I had visited once in Barbuda maybe 28 years ago and I never forgot it. When I got there it was just how I remembered, so then we started looking into it and found the owners and myself and Jamie Packer bought the place.”

According to a report last month by The Australian newspaper, the $330 million project will be built on the island of Barbuda at the site of the old K Club, a luxury hideaway which was once a favourite with Diana, Princess of Wales. Included in the plans are a five-star boutique hotel, an eco-lodge, a marina and an airport for private jets. While De Niro declined to put a date on when the resort will open to guests, he did confirm that reports the plans will include a casino were “all nonsense”.

While a celebrity name may open doors for business meetings and lure investors to events like the Destination Antigua and Barbuda conference in Dubai at the Palazzo Versace, where De Niro spoke as the country’s newly appointed Special Economic Envoy on October 9, the actor knows that it takes more than Hollywood sparkle to seal the deal.

“They have to look at things outside of you and what I have to offer is that I am committed to it, so I am going to come to a place like Dubai and talk about it and see if people will be interested,” he said. “It is going to be done in a special way and then it is up to them and they can look at numbers. It is like a movie, you have to see if they want to invest and how much, the usual stuff.”

Strong belief

Of course, it is not the first big business venture De Niro has put his name to, for in the late 90s he teamed up with Japanese celebrity chef Nobu Matsuhisa to open a chain of popular restaurants across the United States and worldwide, including Dubai and Doha.

“When I started Nobu I couldn’t get people to invest and finally did, and not the people you think, but if the food wasn’t good and the service and restaurant wasn’t terrific people would go once or twice and won’t come back.

“I pick things that I feel strongly about - like the Barbudan project - that it is worth the time for me to put in as I believe in it. That’s the bottom line, you have to believe in what you are doing to put the time in, especially as you get older,” he said of the thinking behind hid business decisions.

However, he does admit that, like some of the over 100 movies he has starred in, some ventures do not always work out the way one hopes.

“You can do movies, like if you want to capitalise on a franchise sort of thing… The Focker, ‘Meet the Parents’ movies, certainly after the first one, [I didn’t think] that two more would be made. Or ‘Analyse This’, we did ‘Analyse That’, which wasn’t as successful, but that is what happens.

“Sometimes you go into something and it doesn’t work and you were certain it would work but I don’t go into too many things, I try to make sure I think this is going to work.”

Trump is not the answer

Putting business aside, one subject that gets De Niro riled up these days is politics, namely the U.S. presidential election and Donald Trump’s candidacy. Just hours before we sat down for our chat, a video of De Niro making a scathing attack on Trump went viral.

"He's so blatantly stupid," he said of Trump in the short video clip. "It makes me so angry that this country has gotten to this point that this fool, this bozo, has wound up where he has. He talks how he wants to punch people in the face? Well, I'd like to punch him in the face."

Asked if he thinks the wealthy real estate developer and former reality TV star would be inaugurated into the Oval Office in a few months, De Niro told Zawya:

“I certainly hope not as it would not be a good situation. A part of it is I think being on that chat show and ‘The Apprentice’ all these years, it is a show, it is not real. That goes a long way with certain people but that is not being President of the United States, it is not a good situation.

“Maybe he isn’t serious but he is being taken serious by certain people, which is disturbing. It shows that people were right about how the country got screwed over by certain elements of Wall Street and the housing and everything and we had the financial depression and people are fed up and people are voting for him and are upset and I understand. But he is not the answer, he is definitely not the answer.”

De Niro is fully behind people voting for Democratic candidate Hilary Clinton. “Absolutely, she’s a grown up, she’s solid, she’s taken her hits and she might have faults here and there but at the end of the day he’s a grown up and she is strong.”

Ventures and directing

It is not too long ago that an actor, Ronald Regan, made it into the White House, but De Niro isn’t willing to step into that realm and offer himself up as a third alternative. “It’s too late for that,” he said.

In fact, while his focus for the next few years will be on his property business ventures, he has no plans to give up the day job and retire from Hollywood completely. “I don’t see myself leaving acting. I’d like to direct another movie but it takes a lot of time and you have to really want to do it.”

It certainly won’t be the last that Dubai has seen of De Niro as his Nobu brand is expanding into the hospitality sector and while hotel properties have already been announced for Bahrain and Riyadh, he says he can see one in the near future in Dubai.

“I do see one and I am hoping that will happen,” he says.

Finally as our time comes to an end, he shakes hands, smiles and agrees to pose for a few photos. So much for the myth that De Niro has a miserable reputation?

© Zawya 2016