First published in The Sydney Morning Herald on February 24, 1981

Robert De Niro sniffed out loud, occasionally rubbed his nose like a boxer and still seemed preoccupied with his role as the former world boxing champion, Jake La Motta, when he met the Sydney press yesterday.

His leading role in the film, Raging Bull, which opens in Sydney this week, certainly demanded a tour de force from the actor, but also scored him a nomination for an Academy Award for Best Actor.

As he has done for most other parts he has played, De Niro totally immersed himself in the character he was to portray. To become the boxer, he trained with Jake La Motta for almost a year before the film’s boxing sequences were shot. He eventually reached a standard which La Motta praised as worthy of a professional fighter.

“He exaggerates about the fighting,” De Niro said with a laugh yesterday. “I want to make it perfectly clear that that is not true.”

Stopping at nothing to be as true to life as possible, De Niro also gained more than 25 kilograms in weight to play the defeated boxer in later life, his face swollen and his ample belly spilling over the top of his trousers.

How did he do it?

“I just ate a lot,” he said. “I ate three solid meals a day and that was enough, I usually don’t even eat breakfast.” But the extra weight was uncomfortable. His heels started to hurt with the added load he had to carry, his thighs were sore and eventually he could not even bend over to tie his shoelaces.