In a video that circulated on X Wednesday, Robert De Niro can be seen yelling at a crowd while Jesse Plemons looks on from the sidelines. The video, taken by an unknown outlooker, was reposted by several pro-Israel accounts that subtitled De Niro’s dialogue and began circulating it, claiming that De Niro was shouting at pro-Palestinian protestors and referring to the Israel-Hamas War that started Oct. 7.
But the veteran actor was actually rehearsing a new Netflix show on location, his representative Stan Rosenfield confirmed. “What was seen was erroneous reports of Robert De Niro supposedly yelling at a group of anti-Israeli protesters,” Rosenfield said.
“De Niro’s lines were 100% scripted,” said the rep. “The video was a small snippet from a rehearsal scene from the Netflix series ‘Zero Day‘ which was being filmed on the streets of New York, April 27, where the character played by De Niro is confronting a group (all paid extras).”
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“Someone copied the post and fabricated an entirely different and bogus meaning,” Rosenfield explained.
Netflix also confirmed that De Niro’s speech was from the series’ script and not related to demonstrations in response to the Israel-Palestine conflict.
In the video, De Niro can be heard shouting, “This is not a movie, this is real! That’s dangerous and they say they’re going to do it again! Again! You don’t want that. None of us want that. C’mon. Let’s all get serious.”
The footage was misrepresented in several posts on social media, including one that labeled the video, “Robert De Niro Stands with Israel!”
In the conspiracy thriller series “Zero Day,” De Niro plays a former President of the U.S. who comes out of retirement to lead a commission investigating a potential world crisis — a serious cyber-attack. The series co-stars Plemons, Lizzy Caplan, Joan Allen, Connie Britton, Matthew Modine and Angela Bassett.
The six-episode series is directed and executive-produced by “Homeland’s” Lesli Linka Glatter, and is De Niro’s first TV series.