ENGLISH SPEECH ROBERT DE NIRO Next English Subtitles

Dean Green, deans, University Leadership, 
faculty, staff, parents, friends,  

and the 2015 class of New York 
University’s TISCH School of the Arts. 

Thank you for inviting me to celebrate with 
you today. TISCH graduates, you made it! 

And you’re fucked. Think about that. The graduates 
from the college of nursing, they all have jobs.  

The graduates from the college 
of dentistry, fully employed.  

The Leonard M Stern School of Business graduates, 
they’re covered. The School of Medicine graduates,  

each one will get a job. The proud 
graduates of the NY School of Law,  

they’re covered, and if they’re 
not, who cares? They’re lawyers.  

The English majors are not a factor.  

They’ll be home writing their novels. Teachers, 
they’ll all be working. Shitty jobs, lousy pay,  

but still working. The graduates 
in accounting they all have jobs.  

Where does that leave you? Envious of those 
accountants, I doubt that. They had a choice.  

Maybe they were passionate about 
accounting, but I think it’s more likely  

that they used reason and logic and 
common sense to reach for a career  

that could give them the expectation of success 
and stability. Reason, logic, common sense?  

At the TISCH School of Arts? Are you kidding me?
But you didn’t have that choice, did you? You  

discovered a talent, recognised your 
ambition and developed a passion.  

When you feel that you can’t fight it, you 
just go with it. When it comes to the arts,  

passion should always trump common sense. You 
aren’t just following dreams; you’re reaching  

for your destiny. You’re a dancer, a singer, a 
choreographer, a musician, a film maker, a writer,  

a photographer, a director, a producer, 
an actor, an artist. Yeah, you’re fucked! 

The good news is that that’s 
not a bad place to start.  

Now that you’ve made your choice, or 
rather, succumbed to it, your path is clear.  

Not easy but clear. You have to keep working, 
it’s that simple. You got through TISCH,  

that’s a big deal, or to put it another 
way, you got through TISCH, big deal.  

Well, it’s a start. On this day of triumphantly 
graduating a new door is opening for you. A door  

to a lifetime of rejection. It’s inevitable. 
It’s what graduates call the ‘the real world’.  

You’ll experience it auditioning 
for a part or a place in a company.  

It’ll happen to you when you’re looking for 
backers for a project. You’ll feel it when door  

close on you when you’re trying to get attention 
for something you have written, and when you’re  

looking for a directing or choreographing job.
While preparing for my role today, I asked a few  

TISCH students for directions for this speech. 
The first thing they said was keep it short.  

And they said it’s okay to give a bit of advice, 
it’s kind of expected and no one will mind.  

And then they said, to keep it short.
It’s difficult for me to come with advice  

for you who have already set upon your life’s 
work, but I can tell you some of the things I  

tell my own children. First, whatever you 
do, don’t go to TISCH School of the Arts.  

Get an accounting degree instead.
Then I contradict myself, and as corny  

as it sounds, I tell them don’t be afraid to fail. 
I urge them to take chances, to keep an open mind,  

to welcome new experiences and new ideas. I tell 
them that if you don’t go, you’ll never know. You  

just have to be bold and go out 
there and take your chances.  

I tell them that if they go into the arts, I hope 
they find a nurturing and challenging community  

of like-minded individuals, a place like TISCH. 
If they find themselves with the talent and the  

burning desire to be in the performing arts, I 
tell them when you collaborate, you try to make  

everything better but you’re not responsible 
for the entire project, only your part in it.  

You’ll find yourself in movies or plays or 
concerts or dance pieces that turn out in the eyes  

of critics and audiences to be bad, but 
that’s not on you, because you will put  

everything into everything that you do. 
You won’t judge the characters you play,  

and shouldn’t be distracted by judgments on the 
works you are in. Whether you are working for  

Ed Wood of Federico Fellini or Martin Scorsese, 
your commitment to your process will be the same. 

By the way there will be times when your best is 
not enough. There can be many reasons for this,  

but as long as you give your best, it’ll be 
okay. Did you get straight As at school? If so,  

good for you, congratulations, but in the 
real world you’ll never get straight As again.  

There are ups and there are downs. And what 
I want to say to you today is that it’s okay.  

Instead of rocking caps and gowns today I can 
see all of you graduating today in custom TSOA  

T-shirts. On the back is printed, 
‘Rejection - it isn’t personal’.  

And on the front - your motto, your mantra, your 
battle cry, ‘Next!’ You didn’t get that part,  

that’s my point, ‘Next’, you’ll get the 
next one, or the next one after that.  

You didn’t get that waiter’s 
job at the White Oak tavern,  

next! You’ll get the next one, or you’ll 
get the next gig tending bar at Joseph’s.  

You didn’t get into Juilliard? 
Next! You’ll get into Yale or TISCH.  

You guys like that joke, so it’s okay. 

No, of course choosing TISCH is like choosing 
the arts. It isn’t your first choice,  

it’s your only choice. I didn’t attend 
TISCH or for that matter any college,  

or my senior year of high school, or most of 
my junior year … still I’ve felt like part  

of the TISCH community for a long time. I 
grew up in the same neighbourhood as TISCH.  

I’ve worked for a lot of people who have attended 
TISCH, including Marty Scorsese, Class of ’64.  

As you learn your craft together you come to 
trust each other and depend on each other.  

This encourages taking creative risks, 
because you all have the sense that  

you’re in it together. It’s no surprise that we 
often work with the same people over and over.  

I did eight pictures with Marty, and plan to do 
more. He did about twenty-five with his editor,  

Thelma Schoon maker, whom he met at TISCH when she 
worked on his student film in the summer of ‘63.  

Other directors - Cassavetes, Fellini, Hitchcock, 
came back to the same collaborators over and over,  

almost like a repertoire 
company. And now David O. Russell  

and Wes Anderson are continuing that tradition.
Treasure the associations and friendships and  

working relationships with the people 
in your classes in your early work.  

You never know what might come from them. There 
could be a major creative shift or a small detail  

that could make a major impression. In Taxi 
Driver, Marty and I wanted Travis Bickle to cut  

his hair into a mohawk. An important character 
detail, but I couldn’t do it because I needed  

long hair for The Last Tycoon that 
was starting right after Taxi Driver,  

and we knew a false Mohawk would look, well, 
false. So, we were kicking it around one day at  

lunch and we decided to give it one shot with the 
very best makeup artist at the time, Dick Smith.  

If you saw the movie, you’ll know that it worked. 
And by the way, now you know it wasn’t real. 

Friendships, good working 
relationships, collaboration,  

you just never know what’s going to happen when 
you get together with your creative friends.  

Marty Scorsese was here last year to speak to your 
2014 graduates. And now here I am, here we are,  

on Friday, at a kind of super-sized version of 
one of Alison’s student lounge hangout sessions.  

You’re here to pause and celebrate 
your accomplishments so far,  

as you move on to a rich and challenging future.  

And me - I’m here to hand out my pictures and 
resumes to the directing and producing graduates. 

I’m excited and honoured to be in a room of 
young creatives who make me hopeful about the  

future of the performing and media arts and I know 
you’re going to make it, all of you. Break a leg! 

Next!
Thank you.