Robert De Niro, Asa Butterfield Awkwardly Bond Over Eating and Going Places in Uber One U.K. Ad Campaign

Abbey White
·2 min read
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Robert De Niro and Asa Butterfield form an unlikely friendship over eating food and going places in a new ad for Uber One.

The Oscar-winning actor joins the Sex Education star for the three-minute vignette, which was directed by David Shane. The ad, designed to grow Uber One’s U.K. subscribers, sees the two actors forming an unlikely friendship. It’s the latest celebrity Uber ad campaign, following commercials in the U.K. and U.S. for both its Uber Eats delivery service and separate membership service Uber One, featuring Gwyneth Paltrow, Jennifer Coolidge, Trevor Noah, Sarah Silverman and Nicholas Braun.

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The ad begins with the duo on a set as Butterfield tries to connect with the veteran actor while the performing veteran quietly eats his Uber delivery. After a somewhat cringey, minute-long exchange of questions around whether De Niro eats and likes going places, The Irishman and Killers of the Flower Moon star declares, “Wow, look at that. We both eat food and we both go places.” In response, Butterfield’s internal monologue happily proclaims, “And that’s when I knew: I was going to be best friends with Robert De Niro.”

Soon after, he buys them an Uber One membership, and the duo are off for even more strangely comedic exchanges while watching cat videos, enjoying the swings at a public park, and playing both ping pong and I Spy. At several points, De Niro tries to pull a quarter from behind Butterfield’s ear as a magic trick, while the Sex Education star shoots a straw wrapper at his new best friend. It all ends with one Uber driver taking the duo to a place with a great view, and in a romcom ending, they stand underneath the London night sky and watching fireworks.

The ad launched Friday in the U.K., where Uber One already has over 1 million members for its membership platform that features reduced delivery fees and discounted rides alongside other exclusive benefits. The commercial is set to run across TV, BVOD, cinema and digital, with cuts ranging from six seconds to longer.

The ad campaign initially garnered attention after reports in late September suggested De Niro would be reprising his role as Taxi Driver‘s Travis Bickle for the commercial, with ads allegedly set to feature the actor uttering the famous line, “You talkin’ to me?” The film’s writer Paul Schrader responded critically on social media to those rumors. “Why Bob would do this is beyond my reckoning. But I haven’t seen it. If I’m lucky, I never will,” he wrote in a Facebook post.

Both Uber and the actor’s rep Stan Rosenfield denied the claims, telling The Hollywood Reporter at the time that De Niro would not be uttering the popularized phrase, confirming that the “Uber commercial has nothing to do with his Taxi Driver character.”

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