Robert De Niro talks playing dual roles in his new gangster movie from the co-writer of Goodfellas and Casino – and his surprising personal connection to the film

The Alto Knights sees Robert De Niro play opposite none other than himself, embodying the dual roles of infamous crime bosses Frank Costello and Vito Genovese.

It’s a tale of childhood friendship turned to bitter rivalry and betrayal, based on the real history of the downfall of the American Mafia. De Niro, of course, is no stranger to the genre, having starred in some of the greatest gangster movies ever made – Goodfellas, The Irishman, Casino, and The Godfather Part 2, to name a few – and neither is the film’s writer. The Alto Knights is scripted by Nicholas Pileggi, the veteran crime reporter who co-wrote the screenplays for Goodfellas and Casino with Martin Scorsese (and also penned their source material).

“[Producer] Irwin Winkler called me and asked me, he said he had a script, if I’d read it,” recalls De Niro when we meet with him and his co-star Debra Messing in London to talk about the movie. “Nick Pileggi had written it and Barry Levinson was going to direct it.”

While De Niro’s professional familiarity with the film is obvious, then, he also surprisingly has a personal link to The Alto Knights, which takes its name from the old social club in Little Italy, New York City.

“So I read it and was of course very curious about it, and we met and talked,” De Niro continues. “And one thing I had asked Nick about is why he used Alto Knights. I said, ‘I don’t know if you know this, but I know this place. I used to hang out there when I was a teenager.’ And so he said he used it for the story. It must have been a title that he saw, he knew himself, because he wrote a great piece on Little Italy in the early ’70s that in fact I told Marty Scorsese about and said, ‘You should read this.’ It was a very accurate, terrific piece. He knew about the world down there, the social clubs, and all that stuff. I forget the exact, but he said he got it from that somehow.”

Robert De Niro in The Alto Knights

(Image credit: Warner Bros.)

While Costello acts as the film’s protagonist, he’s shadowed by De Niro’s other role: Genovese. As De Niro explains, he was first approached about playing Costello, and the concept of playing both gangsters naturally arose later.

“The idea of playing the two, Irwin Winkler had brought up the idea as we talked about the script. ‘How about you playing the two parts?'” De Niro says. “It wasn’t an immediate idea. It was something when we were thinking of who would play – they were offering me Costello – who would play Genovese. They went through some names and then Irwin said, ‘Maybe you ought to try that.’ I thought, ‘Well, that’s interesting. Let me think about it.'”

The Alto Knights is in theaters from March 21. In the meantime, check out our guide to all the upcoming movies of the year to fill out your watchlist, or see our guide to 2025’s major movie release dates to plan your theater trips.

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