Al Pacino Reveals He Almost Was Fired When Filming ‘The Godfather’ Started | English film news

In his memoirs “Sonny Boy,” Al Pacino recently opened up the closet of near-shots from “The Godfather‘. This came after the actor gave the best performance ever seen on screen with his portrayal of Michael Corleone. The actor revealed that the studio didn’t even think he was good enough to portray the character. Despite earning one Oscar nomination Because of his role, things didn’t go smoothly at first.
In his own book, Pacino admits that Francis Ford Coppola only came to him about a week into filming and said that the studio was not happy with his performance. The first choices for the role were Ryan O’Neal, Robert Redford and Warren Beatty. And although Coppola fought long and hard to give Pacino the role, pressure grew on the director to get rid of him.
Al admits that the earlier scenes didn’t work for him because he deliberately played the role of Michael to turn this quiet, thoughtful son into a strong mafia leader. He makes it clear to show Michael’s metamorphosis process in the film instead of viewing him as a strong, aggressive figure. For this reason, studio executives never liked it; It just didn’t reach the intensity that Pacino’s performance required.
Coppola didn’t want to lose Pacino; So he decided to come up with a scenario for the studio to prove they had the right man for the role. There is one of the most crucial scenes in the film – this Shooting in the restaurantwhere Michael murders two enemies in cold blood. This is a tense and dramatic moment, and Coppola hoped it would be enough to prove Pacino could play the role.
According to Pacino, that was all he could bring to the scene; This hand-to-hand combat scene involving Al Lettieri and Sterling Hayden’s characters took more than 15 hours to film. He was really under pressure because Pacino knew that his fate in the film depended on this scene.
Luckily, his performance in this crucial scene was strong enough to convince the studio and he got the role of Michael Corleone. As Pacino mentioned, his co-actors were extremely welcoming during these difficult times. They could obviously sense that he was trying to carry an enormous burden. Because his livelihood was at risk and they were doing everything they could to help him stay optimistic.
Looking back, it’s hard to imagine anyone else playing Michael Corleone. However, as Pacino’s own memoirs suggest, he became one of the cinemaIt wasn’t as easy as most people in the world would believe.