Al Pacino’s desperation to quit ‘The Godfather’: “You’re gonna get me out of this film”
Al Pacino owes a lot to The Godfather movies. Although his role as the youngest Corleone son never landed him the Oscar it deserved, it was his breakout role that established him as one of the most exciting new talents in Hollywood.
As Michael Corleone, Pacino doesn’t have the explosiveness of James Caan’s Sonny Corleone or the menacing magnetism of Marlon Brando’s patriarch, Vito Corleone. The character is more conflicted than the other members of the family and has a much steeper character arc. As Michael, Pacino is reserved and cautious at first, only to descend to the depths of deceit and criminality by the end.
Although Pacino had earned praise for his role as a heroin addict in the 1971 drama Panic in Needle Park, it was a heavy film that didn’t enjoy a wide audience, and it’s fair to assume that, without The Godfather, Pacino might not have had the illustrious career that he’s had. Regardless of how grateful the actor was to land the role of Michael Corleone, he found the process of making the film so challenging that he wanted to quit.
In an interview with Conan O’Brien about his memoir Sonny Boy earlier this year, Pacino revealed that at one point, he was willing to do almost anything to get out of the movie altogether and how an injury on set nearly got him his wish.
“My ankle was hurt, somehow it slipped,” he recounted. “The car had one of those side things that you could jump on and then jump in. So I was just looking up at the sky, and I said, ‘Thank you, God.’ This was my thought. I actually said, ‘Thank you, God. You’re gonna get me out of this film.’ That’s how much I wanted to leave it.”
The on-set challenges of The Godfather paled in comparison to Coppola’s 1979 film Apocalypse Now, but there was so much drama that it became the subject of the 2022 television series The Offer. Setting aside Coppola’s constant wrangling with the studio, Brando refused to learn his lines, the production came under threat from the actual Mob, and Paramount considered firing Pacino after viewing early footage of his performance.
Pacino’s frustrations continued even after the film was released. When he was nominated for ‘Best Supporting Actor’ at the Oscars and Brando was nominated for ‘Best Actor,’ he boycotted the ceremony, believing (reasonably) that his relative time on-screen warranted a ‘Best Actor’ nomination. Brando boycotted the event as well, but not out of protest on Pacino’s behalf. He famously sent a Native American activist to decline the award, creating one of the most memorable moments in the Academy’s history.
Ultimately, Pacino must have resolved his conflicts with the franchise because he returned for the sequel two years later. Coppola had near complete control over the film this time, and as a result, the set was a much less tumultuous one. In the end, Pacino got the ‘Best Actor’ nomination he was looking for, though it would take another couple of decades before he finally won.
