Al Pacino explains how he was almost fired from ‘The Godfather’
The legendary American actor Al Pacino is currently on an interview tour to discuss his illustrious career, which boasts major credits like The Godfather, Scarface, Serpico and Heat. In a new interview with David Rubenstein as part of 92NY’s ‘People Who Inspire Us’, the 82-year-old actor discussed the prospect of retirement and reflected on his career.
Revealing that he’s currently writing a memoir, Pacino said: “You get to that age, you start to do things like that. I stayed away from it, but I think I’ve got to sort of talk about certain things. It’s fine; I have kids and all, it’d be a good idea, and I’m working on it.”
Later, Pacino addressed the audience to see how many people had watched the recent Paramount+ series The Offer, which follows the behind-the-scenes making of the first Godfather movie, which arrived in 1972. “I watched it, and about half of it was true. Really, that’s a shock,” Pacino said of the series.
The actor recalled the project as a bit of a disaster at the time due to funding disputes, revealing that after the first day of shooting, “Diane Keaton and I got drunk and thought, ‘This is it, our careers are over. This is a mess.'”
While Pacino was director Francis Ford Coppola’s first choice for the role of Michael Corleone, the Paramount executives were initially dubious of his impact as an actor. Recalling a conversation he had with Coppola early on in the project, Pacino continued: “He said, ‘You know, I had a lot of faith in you. And you’re failing me.’ I’m standing there thinking “What the fuck, what did I do?'”
Coppola had been feeling the pressure from above at the time and was frustrated with Pacino’s approach. “I wanted to come out of nowhere and by the end of the film create some kind of enigma,” Pacino explained of his approach. “His transition is what interested me, and I thought I was unable to save it.”
Realising he would need to wow Paramount with a dramatic moment earlier on for Michael, Coppola moved a scene up in the shooting order. “The Solozzo scene, where Michael shoots the cop. Coppola pushed that up because he thought Paramount was about to fire me,” Pacino recalled. “I do the scene, they liked it, and they kept me in because I shot someone.”
Watch the famous scene below.
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