Apatow’s “cheese” talk came during his Tribeca Film Festival panel with Matthew Broderick

Judd Apatow; Robert De Niro. Photo:Roy Rochlin/Getty (2)

Robert De Niro doesn’t need any help showing teeth when posing for photos!

The legendary actor, 80, says “cheese” when having his picture taken, according to some first-hand experience from Judd Apatow.

During Apatow’s Tribeca Film Festival panel with Matthew Broderick on Saturday, June 15, the 40-Year-Old Virgin director recalled the first time he was at Tribeca. In 2012, as the now-56-year-old Apatow recalled, he was set to appear with other notable names like Meryl Streep to celebrate a Universal Studios milestone, but it ended up just being him and De Niro.

“Now it’s the 100th anniversary of Universal Studios with Judd Apatow and Robert De Niro, which led to a very awkward Q&A because, you know, he’s talking about Mean Streets. I’m talking about Steve Carell with a boner. It was really fun but really weird,” he remembered.

While there, he noticed something about De Niro: He says “cheese” before having his photo taken.

“And the whole time we’re taking photos, he goes like this, ‘Cheese!’ What is he doing,” he said. “The best actor in the history of Earth has to say ‘cheese’ to create a smile.”

Apatow then revealed that years later his wife Leslie Mann worked on a film with De Niro — 2016’s The Comedian — when she brought the “cheese” ordeal up to theTaxi Driver star. “And one day she says to him, you know, ‘My husband said that when he took pictures with you, you were saying ‘cheese.’ “

“And he goes ‘Yeah, I say cheese.’ “

Judd Apatow chats with Matthew Broderick at the Tribeca Festival on June 15, 2024.Roy Rochlin/Getty

De Niro — who was also at Tribeca this year — caught up with Billy Crystal after the screening for their 1999 film Analyze This on June 14, when he told moderator Gayle King how he hopes to spend his “ideal” Father’s Day this weekend. De Niro is dad to seven children: Drena, 56, Raphael, 47, twins Julian and Aaron, 28, Elliot, 26, Helen, 12, and Gia, 14 months.

“I just like to have us all together, you know,” the Godfather II star said at New York’s The Indeed Theater at Spring Studios. “That’s the ideal, having them all together [on] Father’s Day.”

Earlier this month, the actor told Today what it’s been like to raise his 14-month-old daughter Gia with his girlfriend Tiffany Chen. “I always say it’s pure joy. That’s it,” De Niro said, adding that he thinks he’s an “OK” dad.

When asked how he’s changed as a father, he replied “ask the older ones.”

“Nothing is perfect in life as we all know, and my older kids, when they’re older, they’re more critical. When they’re young like the baby, that’s pure joy, so I’m enjoying that,” he said.