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Al Pacino has opened up about his early struggles on the set of The Godfather, revealing how he was almost “fired” from the production amid doubts over his performance.
The actor, 84, played the role of Michael Corleone, the prodigal son of mafia boss Vito Corleone (Marlon Brando) in the seminal 1972 crime film.
While he went on to draw rave reviews and earn an Oscar nomination for his role in the film, Pacino recalled the negative response to his work after the first few scenes had been filmed.
In an extract from his new memoir Sonny Boy published in The Guardian, Pacino said that he disliked the scene he had to audition with, which was emotionally pared-back and largely consisted of exposition. He nevertheless won the role, with director Francis Ford Coppola favouring him over everyone else.
After filming began, he wrote, “[co-star Diane Keaton] and I spent those first days laughing with each other, having to perform that opening wedding exposition scene from the screen test that we hated so much.
“On the basis of just that one scene, we were certain we were in the worst picture ever made, and when we’d finish shooting for the day, we would go back to Manhattan and get drunk. Our careers were over, we thought.”
As executives at Paramount studio began to watch the footage that had been shot, they were, Pacino claims, “questioning whether I was the right actor for the part”.
“The rumour had got out around the set that I was going to be let go from the picture,” he said. “You could feel that loss of momentum when we shot. There was a discomfort among people, even the crew, when I was working. I was very conscious of that.
“The word was that I was going to be fired, and, likely, so was the director. Not that Francis wasn’t cutting it – I wasn’t. But he was the one responsible for me being in the film.”
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At this point, he met with Coppola, who told him that he didn’t think Pacino was “working”.
“I went into a screening room the next day. And when I looked at the footage, all scenes from very early in the film, I thought to myself, I don’t think there’s anything spectacular here,” he recalled. “I didn’t know what to make of it. But the effect was certainly what I wanted. I didn’t want to be seen.
“My whole plan for Michael was to show that this kid was unaware of things and wasn’t coming on with a personality that was particularly full of charisma. My idea was that this guy comes out of nowhere. That was the power of this characterisation. That was the only way this could work: the emergence of this person, the discovery of his capacity and his potential. By the end of the film, I hoped that I would have created an enigma. And I think that’s what Francis was hoping for also. But neither one of us knew how to explain it to the other.”
According to Pacino, a scene was then moved up the shooting schedule that would “let me show what I was capable of”: the restaurant scene in which Michael takes revenge on two of his foes.
“Francis showed the restaurant scene to the studio, and when they looked at it, something was there,” he wrote. “Because of that scene I just performed, they kept me in the film. So I didn’t get fired from The Godfather.”
Sonny Boy is published on Tuesday 15 October.
