--- title: Robert De Niro Convinced Jimmy Fallon He Never Saw a Dog description: While visiting Jimmy Fallon's 'Tonight Show,' Robert De Niro pretended he had no idea what a dog was — and his acting was perfect. canonical: https://time.com/5243058/robert-deniro-dogs/ author: Raisa Bruner article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2018-04-17T14:44:23.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-04-13T07:52:14.443Z og:title: Robert De Niro Convinced Jimmy Fallon He'd Never Seen a Dog og:description: During a 'Tonight Show' visit, De Niro pretended he was clueless about canines og:url: https://time.com/5243058/robert-deniro-dogs/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Robert De Niro Convinced Jimmy Fallon He'd Never Seen a Dog twitter:description: During a 'Tonight Show' visit, De Niro pretended he was clueless about canines twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # Robert De Niro Pretending Not to Know What Dogs Are Is the Highlight of His Acting Career > Sponsored content. 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Every edition is assembled by TIME editors rather than generated automatically. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-brief-2026q3/newsletters?i=17b04fc1-eb81-4005-918f-7213ad452ca7&cr=time-nl-brief-2026q3-v1)  by [Raisa Bruner](https://time.com/author/raisa-bruner/)  ## Raisa Bruner Apr 17, 2018 2:44 PM UTC  by [Raisa Bruner](https://time.com/author/raisa-bruner/)  ## Raisa Bruner Apr 17, 2018 2:44 PM UTC [Robert De Niro](http://time.com/5240792/ben-stiller-robert-de-niro-meet-the-parents-snl/) is a very good actor. So good, in fact, that he completely flummoxed [Jimmy Fallon](http://time.com/5180872/chadwick-boseman-black-panther-fans-jimmy-fallon/) into believing he had never encountered a dog before. (Or a [labradoodle](http://time.com/designer-dogs/), for that matter.) During a visit to Fallon’s _Tonight Show_ to help promote the upcoming [Tribeca Film Festival,](http://time.com/4757532/virtual-reality-tribeca/) which De Niro founded in 2002 with film producer Jane Rosenthal of and is celebrating its 17th year this spring, the cameras followed Fallon and DeNiro as they chatted and strolled down the back hallways of Rockefeller Center, where the show is filmed. Everything seems to be going fine, up until they walk by a few people hanging out with a puppy. “What’s… what’s that?” De Niro stops to ask, utterly befuddled by the fuzzy creature in front of him. “Uh, I think it’s a labradoodle,” Fallon tries to explain. “Well, usually rabbits aren’t so big,” De Niro continues the conceit. As Fallon tries unsuccessfully to get to the bottom of this most unusual of knowledge gaps, De Niro remains perfectly impassive — and very much in character as De Niro. (He even references his wariness around pets thanks to a certain “cat betrayal” in his past, a reference to the classic comedy [_Meet the Fockers_](http://time.com/4979243/dustin-hoffman-meyerowitz-stories/), of course.) Watch Fallon try to handle the situation, above. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/5243058/robert-deniro-dogs/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/5243058/robert-deniro-dogs/"},"headline":"Robert De Niro Pretending Not to Know What Dogs Are Is the Highlight of His Acting Career","datePublished":"2018-04-17T14:44:23.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-13T07:52:14.443Z","description":"\"Well, usually rabbits aren't so big.\"","url":"https://time.com/5243058/robert-deniro-dogs/","keywords":["Newsfeed","celebrities","Late Night Television"],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Raisa Bruner","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/raisa-bruner/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-newsfeed/","name":"Newsfeed"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/5243058/robert-deniro-dogs/","name":"Robert De Niro Pretending Not to Know What Dogs Are Is the Highlight of His Acting Career"}}]}] ```