“I detest the character”: The role Marlon Brando hated with a passion
One of the toughest parts of acting is requiring the actor to surrender wholeheartedly to the dark soul of a bad character. If the role is nasty, whether that be a classic villain or a complexly difficult or unlikeable figure, the need to exist within the character’s mind for the time it takes to shoot must be a strenuous task on the spirit. Marlon Brando knew that well.
In many ways, Brando played the ultimate unlikeable character. He didn’t just do it once, but twice, as his depiction of one literary figure became the model on which all subsequent performances have been based. His take on Stanley Kowalski from A Streetcar Named Desire was one of his most iconic roles, but perhaps the one he liked least.
Kowalski is a bad guy. He’s cruel, abusive and controlling. Throughout Tennesee Williams’ play, he stays hard-edged and cold, regularly bursting into fits of violence. There is nothing to like about him, and he never displays even a second of sweetness towards his wife, Stella or her sister, Blanche.
Brando was first cast to play the figure in 1946 on Broadway, the first actor to portray the character in its initial Broadway run. His performance was so defining and so terrifyingly moving that when it came to making the 1951 film, there were no arguments or debates over who would be cast. The film earned him his first Oscar nomination for ‘Best Actor’ and set him on the path to total stardom that he traced right to the top.
However, returning to the mind of a character that nasty and riddled with personal problems and darkness was no easy feat for Brando. In fact, he hated it. “I detest the character,” he said to The New York Post. “Kowalski was always right and never afraid,” he reflected about the character. “He never wondered, and he never doubted. His ego was very secure. And he had the kind of brutal aggressiveness that I hate.”
He even took it far enough as to say that he feared the role and the mindset a character like that holds. “I’m afraid of it,” he admitted.
It’s an interesting take, considering some of the other roles Brando has played. In The Godfather films, he plays a role that is undeniably more violent. Vito Corleone is the patriarch of the entire mafia family, running a business based on gambling, corruption and harsh punishment on anyone who crosses them. However, Kowalski was infinitely more terrifying to Brando.
Perhaps it all comes down to the inner psyche of the roles as Brando famously method acted his parts, earning the nickname ‘Mumbling Marlon’ as he walked around set talking to himself as his character. But while Corleone was outwardly violent, his inner life followed a strict moral code with family and loyalty at its centre. Kowalski, on the other hand, seemed to hold nothing sacred, neither his wife, nor child, nor family. He seemed rotten from the very core, and existing in that place was an experience Brando hated.
However, Brando’s Kowalski is incredible. He navigates the violence and cruelty of the character with such nuance and consideration that it’s still studied today, held up as the absolute pinnacle of a complexly dark performance.
