Robert De Niro on 'Big' casting and more to Jimmy Fallon on 'The Tonight Show'

Hollywood star Robert De Niro featured on The Tonight Show where host Jimmy Fallon asked him about a number of rumours surrounding his career. 

The first among the many in Jimmy’s list was a rumour that suggested Robert De Niro was originally cast as Josh, a character eventually played and made famous by Tom Hanks in Penny Marshall’s 1988 comedy, ‘Big’. Robert replied, “Yes But we had a thing, an issue with the negotiations, so it went the way it went. But that was fine.”

For the unversed, ‘Big’ is about a character named Josh Baskin, a young boy who makes a wish to be “big,” and learns to be careful what he wishes for, when he is transformed into an adult overnight. 

Robert also spoke about a rumours around his involvement in the Godfather franchise. He was originally auditioned for the role of Sonny Corleone, in the original ‘Godfather’. The Oscar-winning actor went on to win the statue for his role as a young Vito Corleone in Francis Ford Coppola’s ‘The Godfather: Part II’. 

On this, Robert De Niro told Jimmy, “Everybody was up for Michael [Corleone], but everybody knew that Al [Pacino] was gonna do it, that Francis wanted him,” he told Fallon. “I wanted to do the Sonny part, too, and I read for it, but I think Francis was pretty set on Jimmy Caan, too. But they let me read.”