14 DAY TRIAL // The other day, a preview for Katie Couric’s latest show caused quite a storm for showing iconic actor Robert De Niro tearing up when talking about how difficult it was to have a child with bipolar disorder.
The full video is now out, and you will find it embedded below, at the end of this blog post.
De Niro, Bradley Cooper and David O. Russell were on the show to promote “Silver Linings Playbook,” where De Niro plays father to Cooper’s character who suffers from bipolar disorder.
Asked if he could relate to the story, the actor got so emotional that he had trouble speaking for many seconds (at around the 5-minute mark in the video).
An explanation for that comes from an older The Hollywood Reporter piece.
“Among the topics that we covered: How Russell and De Niro – both of whom have a child with special needs – first met and became friends, and the emotional meeting years later that led De Niro to agree to star in Playbook,” the industry publication wrote after a panel for the film in December last year.
Of course De Niro knows how to play a father who deals with his son’s mental problems if he’s one in real life as well. The actor has 6 children but, as far as I can tell, he’s never talked about the topic before.