Happy birthday, Robert De Niro

Robert De Niro turns 64 today.You talkin' to me?
Robert DeNiro as Travis Bickle
in 1976's "Taxi Driver."

This is usually the part where I say something nice about the Birthday Person, but I don't know where to start with De Niro.

He's a force of nature and after nearly four decades in cinema, he's still going strong. His resume reads like a list of Hollywood's finest moments.

De Niro is a classic example of a method actor. In a nutshell, method acting requires a performer to personally identify with a character — to really "become" the character. The idea is the performance will be more realistic, as the actor reacts to situations in an emotionally honest way.

De Niro's attempts to enter his characters' psyches have garnered a lot of attention.

For 1980's "Raging Bull," De Niro put on 60 pounds to play the character of boxing legend Jake LaMotta. For 1974's "The Godfather Part II," De Niro spent four months learning a Sicilian dialect to play the crime lord Vito Corleone. Incidentally, De Niro won Best Actor Oscars for both performances.

De Niro's also played the vicious ex-con Max Cady in the 1991 remake of "Cape Fear." He reportedly paid a dentist $5,000 to mess up his teeth. It took $20,000 worth of work to get them back to normal.

What's up next for De Niro? Imdb.com shows he has five film projects slated for the next year or so. His co-stars in the upcoming projects include the likes of Bruce Willis, Jodie Foster, Meryl Streep and Al Pacino.