The iconic Gene Hackman role meant for Marlon Brando: “It’s not too bad to be second”
The 1970s was the decade Gene Hackman established himself as one of the top talents in Hollywood, but like almost everybody else in his age bracket, he bowed down to the genius of Marlon Brando even when he made it to the top.
Hackman – along with contemporaries like Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, and Jack Nicholson – are undoubtedly among the greatest actors in the history of cinema, and yet one common trait they all shared is that they worshipped the ground Brando walked on.
Of course, it was an understandable perspective considering he’d completely altered the complexion of screen acting in the 1950s when A Streetcar Named Desire and On the Waterfront saw him almost single-handedly authored the method playbook that so many performers still read from seven decades on, but it’s not as if that aforementioned quartet were struggling to match what he’d brought to the table.
Times had changed by the 1970s, though, with Brando being written off as a has-been. His off-camera antics and problematic behaviour on set were threatening to derail his entire career before Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather brought him roaring back into the spotlight with an iconic Academy Award-winning performance.
Suddenly, he was being inundated with offers as his second wind began, but Brando remained as selective as ever. Coppola was hoping to re-team in short order for the conspiratorial thrills of The Conversation, only for his advances to be rebuffed.
In the end, the part of Harry Caul ended up going Hackman’s way, and it became one of his most celebrated that earned him ‘Best Actor’ nods at the Baftas and Golden Globes. He was shut out of the Oscars conversation and knew he wasn’t the first choice, but as he explained to GQ, he didn’t mind looking at who was in front of him in the queue.
“He wanted Brando for that part, but it’s not too bad to be second to Brando,” Hackman admitted of Coppola’s casting instincts. “We rehearsed; normally you don’t get a lot of rehearsal in films. We took advantage of Francis having some juice, because he’d just finished The Godfather. It was a good experience, because he’s such a confident filmmaker.”
Confident in his abilities to direct a masterpiece, sure, but clearly a touch over-confident after he believed Brando would be open to the idea of a rapid-fire reunion following their seminal first collaboration. The Conversation would have been a very different film with him in the lead, and if anything, Hackman’s grizzled everyman makes a better fit for the material than the larger-than-life persona Coppola’s initial candidate exuded regardless of which role he was playing.
Plenty of actors would turn their noses up with indignation at being offered something one of their peers had already rejected, but exceptions tended to be made when that person was Brando.
