Robert De Niro has played a father in movies plenty of times, but he will be the first to admit that nothing compares to the real thing. The Killers of the Flower Moon actor got visibly emotional discussing his youngest child, Gia Virginia Chen De Niro, whom he welcomed with girlfriend Tiffany Chen in April 2023.

“It feels great,” Robert, 80, gushed over fatherhood in AARP The Magazine‘s February/March 2024 issue. “Everything that I’m consumed with or worried about just goes away when I look at her. It’s wondrous.”

Gia, 9 months, joins Robert’s six other kids from previous relationships: ​​Drena, Raphael, Julian, Aaron, Elliot and Helen. She is his first child with Tiffany, 45, whom he has been linked to since the summer of 2021.

“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 about his youngest daughter.

Robert first revealed that he welcomed his seventh child while promoting the film About My Father. “I just had a baby,” he declared during an interview with Entertainment Tonight in May 2023.

“You know, my kids disagree with me at times, and they’re respectful. My daughter, she’s 11, she gives me grief sometimes and I argue with her,” the Raging Bull actor shared in another rare comment about his kids at the time. “I adore her, but, you know. And my youngest now, that’ll be more to come. But, that’s what it is.”

Robert De Niro smiles with girlfriend Tiffany Chen
Amy Sussman/Getty Images for IHG Hotels & Resorts

Robert also revealed that Gia was sleeping “great” and that he was “very happy” with his blended family. The film icon recently earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor for his role in Killers of the Flower Moon, opposite Leonardo DiCaprio and Lily Gladstone.

While his eldest daughter, Drena, 52, followed in her father’s acting footsteps, Robert has not pressured his children to work in Hollywood.

“For my kids, I tell them, ‘If you want to be an actor or you want to do this or that, that’s fine as long as you’re happy. Just don’t sell yourself short,'” he told People in January 2020. “That’s the most I would say — push yourself a little more and reach for what you really think it is you want to do. Don’t be afraid.”