The director Andy Garcia compared to Aristotle
Actor Andy Garcia has starred in some absolute monoliths of cinema alongside some of the biggest names in film. He played in The Untouchables with Sean Connery and Robert De Niro before starring in The Godfather Part III, directed, of course, by Francis Ford Coppola, an effort which saw Garcia nominated for an Academy Award for ‘Best Supporting Actor’.
In a feature with Rotten Tomatoes, Garcia once named his five favourite films and couldn’t help but select the first two Godfather movies. “Well, you’d have to start with The Godfather,” he said. “You’d almost have to put Part I and II together because they were so close together, and they’re so innately tied into one another.”
Garcia felt that he couldn’t include the much-derided third part of the film series because of his own performance in it, adding, “Not to exclude Part III as a bad movie, but… I don’t see it that way, but I can’t vote for Godfather III because I’m in it. So I have to group those two together. I think those are joined at the hip, in a way.”
The actor then went into detail how the way director Francis Ford Coppola views the third Godfather film in a different light from the first two. “It functions in a different way,” he said before noting the potential of perhaps making a fourth film, however farfetched that may seem.
“I’m sure there’s still a franchise there if Francis wanted to approach it or Paramount wanted to approach it,” Garcia said. “I’m not sure how the dynamics of that would work these days, but I know the interest is there, only because I’m field testing it every day.”
As to whether Garcia would actually perform in a fourth movie, he stops short of that suggestion. “I’m honoured to have been associated with those films. Are you kidding?” he said. “I mean, Godfather Part I was a movie that, certainly, my generation of actors, if not every generation after it, was deeply inspired by.”
And finally, he gives the biggest of praise to his director, the man who made the entire Godfather series come to life, Francis Ford Coppola, comparing him to one of the most brilliant minds of all time, the classical Greek philosopher Aristotle. “Working with Francis is like working with Aristotle,” Garcia concluded. “He’s an extraordinarily creative mind; I found that to be very stimulating.”
