Robert De Niro: I'm glad Robert Mueller didn't play me playing him on SNL

The Washington Post

De Niro, who was nominated for an Emmy two weeks ago for playing Mueller on Saturday Night Live, followed up on his New York Times Op-Ed from two months ago urging the former special counsel to speak out with a Washington Post Op-Ed published today. "I don’t want to criticize Director Mueller as an actor, so let’s just say my approach to the part would have been different," De Niro writes. "Mueller chose to play himself as a calm, confident, dignified public servant. His 'backstory': a patriot serving his country from the battlefields of Vietnam to the battlefields of Washington, D.C. "That’s a valid acting choice, don’t get me wrong. But I, more of a method actor, would have channeled my inner rage at the years of Donald Trump’s illegal and immoral acts, and I would have been more in touch with my fury after two years of Trump and his stooges accusing me of running a witch hunt. I would have dropped the unruffled exterior and been more, let’s say, expansive in my response. I may have dropped an f-bomb or two or eight. The emphasis would have shifted more to me — which is what audiences expect from their movie stars — while Mueller preferred to stay in the background, putting country and integrity first, and letting action and facts speak for him. These are old-fashioned values, not cool enough for today’s distracted audience." De Niro adds: "Still, as I watched Mueller’s performance, I couldn’t help but think that a public servant should not have to 'perform' to command our attention. It seems that everyone — the Democrats, Trump and the Republicans, the country — got what they wanted from the hearings, and yet no one was satisfied." De Niro also writes that he's ready to move on from playing Mueller on SNL ... to playing House Judiciary Committee chairman Jerry Nadler, who is his congressman.