Robert De Niro unexpectedly gets emotional when talking about his 9-month-old daughter

Robert De Niro is definitely enjoying new fatherhood, albeit for the seventh time, but he is just completely enamored with his 9-month-old daughter Gia, who is his first child with his girlfriend Tiffany Chen. The 80 year old star got emotional during an interview with AARP The Magazine, of which he was on the cover, where he shared what it’s like becoming a dad again. And in other recent interviews it’s very apparent how much he loves being a father.

De Niro was nominated in the Best Supporting Actor category for his latest role in Martin Scorsese’s Western film, Killers of the Flower Moon. He told the publication that it feels great to be nominated, but “Everything that I’m consumed with or worried about just goes away when I look at [Gia]. It’s wondrous.”

“When she gets older — who knows? But that very sweet way she has of looking at you, taking you in, thinking and watching and observing…” he continued. De Niro even got teary eyed in the interview when he trailed off talking about Gia, the old softie.

The actor also isn’t afraid to get real about parenting, as evidenced in an interview with The Guardian shortly after Gia was born.

When asked how things were going with his seventh child, it was reported that De Niro shrugged and said, “It’s going OK” and “screwed up his features into a kind of parent-face that suggests he might be muddling through.”

Even Robert De Niro is all of us when it comes to parenting.

“It’s always good and mysterious and you don’t know what the hell is going to happen,” De Niro said. When asked if parenting gets easier, especially the seventh time around, he said it did not get easier. “It is what it is. It’s OK. I mean, I don’t do the heavy lifting. I’m there, I support my girlfriend. But she does the work. And we have help, which is so important,” De Niro continued.

When asked what he enjoys most about fatherhood, De Niro replied, “Everything.”

In June, De Niro told Hoda Kotb on TODAY that he’s learned a lot from all seven of his kids—Drena, 51; Raphael, 46; twin sons Aaron and Julian, 27; Elliot, 25; and Helen, 11.  

And he said the dynamic is different when you’re older. “Well, I have certain awareness,” he said. “When you’re older, you have awareness of certain things in life, dynamics, everything…family dynamics. It’s just, you can’t avoid learning some things, and then how you can deal with those, manage them,” he said.

When receiving a onesie from Hoda that said, “Hug me, TODAY,” he held it up to the camera and said, “Gia, this is for you, honey.”

While being a new dad may have made De Niro sweeter and more sentimental over time, I hope at least one snippet of his words of wisdom for Gia later on down the road is my favorite line from Goodfellas: “Never rat on your friends, and always keep your mouth shut.” Solid advice.