Five directors Marlon Brando made life hell for
There aren’t many actors who don’t look up to Marlon Brando in one way or another, but fortunately for directors everywhere, the majority of them haven’t sought to emulate his on-set antics.
When he could be arsed, Brando was more than capable of reminding everyone why he’s celebrated as the single most influential performer in the history of American cinema. When he couldn’t, which was often, trying to keep him under control was a monumental challenge.
He did whatever he wanted, but because he was Brando, people still fell over themselves to work with him. Many of them ended up rueing the day they signed him up because his reputation for causing trouble was one he never showed any inclination to shake.
With Brando running roughshod, the movie could usually only end up going one of two ways. A couple of classics emerged on the other side, but he was just as capable of phoning it in and making life miserable for a director on the most forgettable of features.
Five directors tormented by Marlon Brando:
5. Francis Ford Coppola (Apocalypse Now, 1979)
Francis Ford Coppola had already wrangled Brando to legendary effect once before on The Godfather, but even his patience was tested to the limit by the actor’s apathy towards their second classic together.
Brando was handsomely rewarded for playing Kurtz after negotiating a deal that paid him $2 million for his efforts in addition to a percentage of the box office and television syndication, but even that wasn’t enough to convince him that getting the finger out was worth it.
Turning up so overweight he had to be filmed in the shadows, Coppola was forced to hastily rewrite the ending because Brando was too portly to perform the scenes as written, while he grew so disdainful of Dennis Hopper he refused to show up on set if he was in the vicinity.
4. Arthur Penn (The Missouri Breaks, 1976)
Partnering up Brando and Jack Nicholson was almost guaranteed to lead to a tumultuous production, which realistically should have made Arthur Penn at least semi-prepared for what was to come on The Missouri Breaks.
However, reports from the set indicated that the director did little to discourage Brando’s wayward behaviour, which he seemed to interpret as an opportunity to do whatever he wanted to keep himself amused during production on the western.
Brando would regularly play pranks on cast and crew members, who he also developed a habit of mooning without warning. He’d deviate from the script, improvise on the fly, and even reportedly bit into a live frog he pulled from the river when he wasn’t using his prop gun to fire shots at grasshoppers.
3. Frank Oz (The Score, 2001)
Robert De Niro would have been beside himself with glee at finally getting the chance to share the screen with his idol on The Score, at least until production started and Brando refused to play ball.
Frank Oz’s prior association with The Muppets made him an easy target for the mischievous icon, who’d regularly refuse to be directed by the filmmaker he denigratingly referred to as ‘Miss Piggy’. As a result, De Niro had to step in and oversee many of Brando’s scenes to try and get the movie over the finish line.
There’s also the small matter of the actor’s refusal to wear trousers in certain scenes, which Oz didn’t see as worth arguing over, leading to The Score featuring several instances of Brando cutting about in his pants.
2. John Frankenheimer (The Island of Dr Moreau, 1996)
Brando was Richard Stanley’s closest ally on the cursed sci-fi horror The Island of Dr Moreau, so it’s no coincidence he became even more of a nuisance when John Frankenheimer replaced the director.
Ironically, one of the reasons Frankenheimer agreed to step in was because he wanted to work with Brando, a decision he ended up regretting when the veteran refused to emerge from his trailer for hours on end, made nonsensical suggestions for script revisions, and battled with co-star Val Kilmer.
He basically did whatever he wanted, and nobody saw fit to try to rein him in. This is just one of many reasons why The Island of Dr Moreau is remembered as one of cinema’s most infamous productions.
1. Lewis Milestone (Mutiny on the Bounty, 1962)
Mutiny on the Bounty ended up landing an Academy Award nomination for ‘Best Picture’, and being named as one of the year’s best movies was in no way reflective of the nightmare Brando created every step of the way.
Whenever he didn’t like a scene, he’d simply stand in front of the camera and refuse to do anything. When he did agree to do the job he was paid to do, it was only if the script had been revised to his satisfaction, and even then, he was a difficult person to coax onto the set in the first place.
Thanks almost entirely to Brando, Mutiny on the Bounty went months over schedule and vastly over its initial budget, with director Lewis Milestone far from the only person involved who couldn’t wait to rid themselves of the star.
