De Niro spent a significant portion of his speech talking about rejection — the one thing every artist can count on. He illustrated the point with stories from his own career, including auditioning seven times for 'Bang the Drum Slowly' and losing a play to 'a name' actor. He even joked about recently auditioning for the role of Martin Luther King Jr. in 'Selma': 'I could have played the hell out of that part.' But beneath the humor was a genuinely useful insight: rejection in the arts is almost never personal. A director has a vision, and you either fit that vision or you don't. Understanding this, De Niro argued, is the key to surviving the brutal mathematics of a creative career, where you will hear 'no' far more often than 'yes.' His proposed mantra for the graduates — 'Next!' — became the rallying cry of the speech.