Though Al Pacino will at all times be synonymous along with his breakthrough efficiency in The Godfather (1972), Francis Ford Coppola‘s acclaimed mafia drama practically changed him.
In his new memoir Sonny Boy, which is now out there, the Academy Award winner recalled Paramount “questioning whether or not I used to be the best actor” to play Michael Corleone within the function adaptation of Mario Puzo’s guide and the way he was in the end in a position to show himself.
“Paramount didn’t need me to play Michael Corleone,” he wrote in an excerpt shared by The Guardian. “They wished Jack Nicholson. They wished Robert Redford. They wished Warren Beatty or Ryan O’Neal. Within the guide, Puzo had Michael calling himself ‘the sissy of the Corleone household.’ He was imagined to be small, dark-haired, good-looking in a fragile approach, no seen menace to anyone. That didn’t sound like the blokes that the studio wished. However that didn’t imply it needed to be me.
“It did imply, nonetheless, that I must screen-test for the function, which I had by no means completed earlier than, and that I must fly out to the west coast to do it, which I simply didn’t wish to do. I didn’t care that it was The Godfather. I used to be a bit afraid of flying and I didn’t wish to go to California. However my supervisor, Marty Bregman, mentioned to me, ‘You’re getting on that fucking airplane.’ He introduced me a pint of whiskey so I might drink it on the flight, and I received there,” added Pacino.
Though Pacino admittedly thought Coppola had “gone too far” in campaigning for him, the actor recalled the “disagreeable feeling” of strolling into the audition room and realizing he wasn’t the one one up for the half.
Al Pacino in The Godfather Half II (1974).
“However right here’s the key: Francis wished me. He wished me and I knew that,” wrote Pacino. “And there’s nothing like when a director needs you. He additionally gave me a present within the type of Diane Keaton. He had a couple of actors he was auditioning for the function of Kay, however the truth that he wished to pair me up with Diane instructed she had an edge within the course of. I knew she was doing nicely in her profession and had been showing on Broadway in exhibits like Hair and Play It Once more, Sam with Woody Allen. A couple of days earlier than the display screen take a look at, I met Diane in Lincoln Middle in New York Metropolis at a bar, and we simply hit it off. She was simple to speak to and humorous, and she or he thought I used to be humorous too. I felt like I had a good friend and an ally instantly.”
After every week and a half of filming, Paramount was “as soon as once more questioning whether or not I used to be the best actor for the half,” Pacino recalled, including: “Lastly, Francis decided that one thing needed to be completed. … At this level we had been taking pictures The Godfather for a few week and a half. And Francis mentioned, ‘Properly, you’re not chopping it.’
“I felt that one within the pit of my abdomen. It’s when it lastly hit me that my job was on the road,” he wrote.
Though Pacino is not sure whether or not Coppola did it “intentionally,” the director “did transfer up the filming of the Italian restaurant scene, the place the untested Michael involves take his revenge on Sollozzo and McCluskey. That scene was not meant to be filmed till a couple of days later, but when one thing hadn’t occurred to let me present what I used to be able to, there won’t have been a later for me.”
Fortuitously for Pacino, the scene confirmed off precisely why Coppola casted him. “Then Francis confirmed the restaurant scene to the studio, and once they checked out it, one thing was there,” he wrote. “Due to that scene I simply carried out, they stored me within the movie. So I didn’t get fired from The Godfather. I simply stored doing what I did, what I had thought of on these lonely walks up and down the size of Manhattan. I did have a plan, a course that I actually believed was the way in which to go along with this character. And I used to be sure that Francis felt the identical approach.”
The Godfather earned Pacino his first Academy Award nomination for Greatest Supporting Actor, happening to land a Greatest Actor nod for The Godfather Half II (1974).
