James Caan’s biggest acting idol: “The nicest guy in the world”
It would be an understatement to say that there has never been another actor like James Caan. It would be equally fair to say that there will likely never be another like Caan, so far reaching was the actor’s cultural impression and so impressive were his many brilliant on screen performances.
Throughout a career of genuine excellence, Caan showed that he was fully deserving of his reputation as one of the most iconic actors of his generation. Some of his most memorable efforts included the likes of The Rain People, The Godfather, The Gambler, Thief, The Yards and even the Christmas comedy Elf.
Still, even the greatest actors of all time have their personal heroes from within their own creative realms, and in that light, Caan was no different. In fact, Caan was fortunately enough to work with some of the biggest names in American cinema, including his acting idol, Marlon Brando, with whom he collaborated in Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather.
“Brando is my idol and the nicest guy in the world,” Caan had once said in an interview with Rolling Stone. “One night, we were having dinner in New York, and he asked me, ‘Jimmy, if you could have anything in the world, what would you want?’ and I said, ‘To be in love,’ and Brando said, ‘Yeah, me too.’”
The Godfather famously saw Brando play Don Vito Corleone, a powerful boss of an Italian-American New York City crime family, while Caan played his oldest son, the hot-tempered Sonny. Coppola’s film arrived as one of the most iconic pieces of cinema of all time and it was largely down to the brilliance of its cast, which included the likes of Al Pacino and Robert Duvall as well as Brando and Caan.
In fact, one of Caan’s favourite scenes from The Godfather came in a moment in which he acted alongside his biggest acting hero in the shape of Brando. The moment comes when Sonny starts picking a nut from a bowl and starts playing with it, all the while his father is explaining why he would not be a good choice to take over the family’s top position.
The nut part had been a bit of an accident on Caan’s part, but Brando said that he was quite impressed with the way that the younger actor had played into the oblivious nature of his character. “I’m sitting there with this fuckin’ nut in my hand, and I don’t know what to do with it now, you know, because it was Brando,” Caan had once said with a laugh. “Brando started punching his fist and laughed and said, ‘That was great’. I said, ‘What are you talking about?’”
Not many actors get to work with their biggest heroes, but pretty much everyone on the cast of The Godfather was grateful to share even a moment of screen time with Brando, who many felt was the greatest actor of the 20th century, with him returning to form in the role of Don Vito Corleone.
“He was the guy. He was a riot,” Caan later told Larry King. “We had a great time.” Coppola’s film was the meeting of countless brilliant actors, but one of its most interesting relationships was that between the father and son, played masterfully by Brando and Caan.
