Scientists and ethicists called yesterday for the maverick Italian doctor Severino Antinori to be outlawed by the world medical community, after he pressed ahead with his human cloning project. Apparently, it can be summed up thus:

Scientists may have at last solved one of the greatest mysteries of the universe.. the secret of successful golf. You never know when you’re going to need a few hundred million dollars.. Whereas it may be the case that in recent years – and he has not worked with Scorsese since Casino (1995) – the more ordinary man has come warily into view. As I said earlier, he’s been criticised for so many dull films. Equally, it may be that he’s doing his grudging best to answer the old question “Who is Robert De Niro?”.

The fact is that, for years, De Niro tended to be taken for granted as Scorsese’s actor, and thus, the ideal spokesman for a very bold, artistic kind of film-making. It offers the working class De Niro (a real part of his life and feelings), as well as the actor who played a fireman in Backdraft and who has been an unconventional cop plenty of times.The sincerity of his part in 9/11 was beyond question, and it’s hardly diminished by his obvious wish to boost business all over Manhattan. He has become a spokesman for the city, most notably in the way he hosted, narrated, and then helped to publicise a stirring television documentary, 9/11, that has just played in America. He is too canny to be a sole proprietor, but he has participation in varying amounts in the Tribeca – Grill, the nearby Nobu on Hudson Street, a Nobu in South Beach, Miami, Rubicon in San Francisco, and now Nobu London. While all of these have some cachet as places where you might see celebrities, they have thrived because of their culinary excellence in very competitive markets.

(His father was a noted painter.)But De Niro made a rapid sideways move as he branched out into a series of high-quality restaurants. He has directed nothing else since, whereas he has had some production involvement in nearly a score of projects – including Ed Harris’s Pollock, which got finished because of De Niro’s help, and which reflects his great interest in modern art. It was then that he set up Tribeca Productions (with Jane Rosenthal as his business partner). Very quickly, he directed his first film – A Bronx Tale (1993) – so that there was speculation that De Niro was about to turn himself into a director akin to his close friend and long-time collaborator, Martin Scorsese Not so. Indeed, in The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle, he even replayed that classic line from Taxi Driver – “You talking to me? Well, I’m the only one here” – for comic effect.The entrepreneurial persona began to emerge about a dozen years ago. There were times when he could seem hostile and even dangerous, for there has always been a coiled energy in the man, a kind of guardedness that could seem menacing. But whereas most players are inclined to be ingratiating, superficially friendly and “available”, De Niro has often emphasised his own blankness, his emptiness, his indifference to all the stupid questions.

To many observers, there had always been a fascinating gulf between De Niro’s eloquence once he finds himself in a role, and his reticence, his shyness, his sour, morose unhelpful attitude (all have been invoked) whenever he has risked stepping into our garish confessional, the personality interview.He doesn’t do such things; he clearly finds the ways in which he arrives at his characters and performances rather mysterious He’s not the only actor who can’t explain what he does. Rather, it is perhaps the first pronounced revelation of character in an actor who, ever since his debut in the late 1960s, has been unusually silent (or inarticulate) about all the matters that the gossip press puts to actors – like how he does what he does, how it feels, his family and romantic life, and even the meaning of his films. It is not just his share in the hot restaurant, Nobu, nor even the steady rumours that he is looking to buy a property in Bermondsey (the old Hartley’s jam factory) as a production base, but the word that his Tribeca Productions will be one of the backers on We Will Rock You, the stage musical derived from Queen songs, set to open in the West End in May.This is not to imply that De Niro is uncommon among actors in being interested in money. Thus, the immediate hook of this story is De Niro’s increasing presence as a London entrepreneur. He takes a part of the profits.
And so it is that in talking about the actor who once upon a time went to extraordinary, self-effacing lengths to get work – so long as it was difficult and dangerous – we are also discussing a very successful businessman.