Some of De Niro's fans wonder why it took him over a decade to direct his second film. But then the actor was anything but idle in the intervening years, launching the Tribeca Film Center and its annual film festival, besides acting in landmark films constantly.
De Niro says he didn't direct for a while because all the compelling books he wanted to lay his hands on had been grabbed by others. But when he heard that Eric Roth, the Oscar-winning writer of Forrest Gump and the recent Munich, had a story focused on the seemingly ordinary men and women in the CIA and their domestic lives, De Niro sought out the writer. After reading the screenplay, he offered not only to star in the film but also produce and direct.
Co-producer Jane Rosenthal agrees with De Niro that the movie project gained more immediacy after 9/11. For The Good Shepherd is also about decisions American leaders had to make in the face of big crises. 'I think it was really in the post 9/11 world that people started to pay attention to this subject,' she notes. 'That's when doors opened and real discussions began about making this kind of a movie.' And when columnist Robert D Novak outed Valerie Palme as a CIA operative three years ago, the subject of secrecy and CIA became even more topical, says Rosenthal. 'This film could not be any more current.'
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