The movie Marlon Brando begged James Caan to be in: “You’ve got to do this picture with me”
There was a point in Marlon Brando’s career when he began appearing in movies that shocked many fans. He had, of course, risen to prominence in the 1950s with roles in A Streetcar Named Desire and On the Waterfront, but the 1960s saw him take on many movies that failed at the box office and with critics, like The Ugly American and Candy.
Luckily for Brando, 1972’s The Godfather proved to be the resurgence he needed to rejuvenate his career and show people that he still had the raw talent that initially made him such a star. He earned widespread acclaim for his performance, but Brando’s penchant for unexpected roles never fully left him. He followed the movie with a role in the erotic French drama Last Tango in Paris, which garnered significant controversy, before pairing up with Jack Nicholson for the western The Missouri Breaks.
However, it was his next project that took many people by surprise – Superman. Somehow, Brando agreed to play Jor-El, the titular character’s biological father, although he proved to be a handful on set. He didn’t learn his lines properly, with some of them even being written on the nappy worn by the baby he had to hold in one scene. Brando further shocked the filmmakers when he suggested a rather unusual idea for his appearance in the film.
He reportedly said, “Well, this is Krypton. Nobody knows what the people on Krypton look like. What if we look like bagels, but I’m going to make my son look like a human because that’s where I’m sending him – to Earth – but everybody else on Krypton looks like bagels. That would really be original.”
The movie saw Christopher Reeve play Superman, but the role was initially offered to various other stars, including James Caan, whom Brando had previously starred alongside in The Godfather. Caan had played Sonny Corleone, the son of Brando’s Vito, and when Brando found out that he could potentially play Caan’s on-screen father again, he was keen to get the actor on board for the superhero movie.
The Godfather author Mario Puzo wrote the screenplay for Superman, with Caan revealing in an interview with The Howard Stern Show that it was “hysterical” and “tongue and cheek” and he liked the sound of it. When Caan was asked to play the role, he had several reasons for turning it down, however, including his reluctance to wear the outfit, as well as the fact it would’ve been a two-movie deal.
Yet, Brando tried to do all he could to convince Caan to play the legendary character. “I get a call from Brando one night,” he explained, revealing that Brando told him, “You’ve got to do this picture with me,” adding, “I need some laughs.”
Caan joked that he was able to make Brando laugh at “the drop of a hat,” and he was desperate to get the actor to join him, but Caan knew that he would have to work a lot longer than Brando if he were to take on the main role.
Concluding, “I said, ‘Marlon, you know they’re making two movies out of it, not one, right? You’re gonna make two.’ He says, ‘So what? I’m doing it.’ And I said, ‘Yeah, but you don’t have to wear the suit’ and he went ‘Uh huh huh huh’ and he hung up and I never heard from him again.”
