A softer, gentler, huggable De Niro

In his new film, Robert De Niro plays a 70-year-old bored with retirement who lands an internship at a start-up fashion website.

Robert De Niro has a black cap on and that's a good thing. He's talking about stealing furniture and all good burglars know a black hat is necessary garb if you want to maximise your chances.

I don't have a hat on, but I'm in on his theft plan.

"I steal a lot of the furniture," says 72-year-old De Niro, revealing probably for the first time his love of five-finger discounts.

De Niro, the two-time Oscar winner and seven-time nominee for films including Raging Bull, The Deer Hunter, Taxi Driver and The Godfather: Part II, made the revelation while talking about his new comedy, The Intern.

The subject of furniture came up while we were discussing the warm, inviting sets of gorgeous kitchens and cosy living rooms The Intern's writer-director Nancy Meyers created for this comedy (and for previous films It's Complicated, Something's Gotta Give and The Holiday).

"I say, 'I want that. I want that. Send that home,'" says a laughing De Niro, describing how he fleeced The Intern set.

It is his 50th year in film, and The Intern shows a gentle, softer side of De Niro. He has been in comedies before, but usually as a tough guy. In The Intern there's an opening monologue that melts the audience and during the film you want to give him a hug.

De Niro plays 70-year-old Brooklyn retiree and widower Ben Whittaker who, after a long career as a company man at a phone book business, is bored and believes he has more to offer the world.

He sees an ad for a senior intern at a start-up fashion website, scores the job, then finds himself assigned to the company's creator, Jules Ostin (Anne Hathaway), an anxious, hard-working Type A personality.

Whittaker, with his traditional suits, ties and handkerchiefs, finds himself in a hip office where Ostin gets around on a bicycle and the staff wear hoodies and communicate via emoticons.

"Do you have a smartphone?" I ask De Niro, remembering just a few years back he had an old school flip-style mobile phone. He digs into his sports jacket pocket and pulls out an iPhone.

"There you go," I say, congratulating him on being hip.

As for retirement, De Niro says he has no plans for that because he'd be as bored as the character he plays in the film.

"I don't see what else to do," he says. "I have a very active life.

"I have my kids, my family, my many projects I work on besides acting. I'm busy and I like it that way." Not convinced, I throw out a retirement number. How about you retire when you're 110?

"Hey, I wish," he says with a smile. "Listen. I'll take 110."

De Niro has a reputation for being a tough interview, even walking out on a British journalist recently while promoting this very film.

Yes, he's a tough interview, but under the gruff exterior is an acting great who likes to joke around.

"I grab him by the lapels and I say, 'Listen you Raging Bull'," Meyers jokes while describing how she directed De Niro in The Intern.

Meyers, 65, is used to working with the greats, with Meryl Streep, Jack Nicholson, Alec Baldwin, Mel Gibson and Diane Keaton among her casts.

"First of all, he doesn't need that much direction - he's a great actor," Meyers says. "My experience with famous, iconic actors like Bob, Meryl or Nicholson is they're in your movie to be good. He's really open to suggestions and if I say, 'Try this,' he'll go, 'Okay, great.'"

I didn't tell Meyers that Bob, as she calls him, pinched furniture from her set.

- AAP