Natasha Lyonne owns the footage of Marlon Brando’s final role: “He just kind of held my boob”
Marlon Brando made his final film appearance in 2001’s The Score, passing away three years later at the age of 80. Yet, he almost made his last on-screen role in something much worse – Scary Movie 2.
At the height of the parody genre’s chokehold over American movie-goers, the Scary Movie franchise dominated with its non-PC jokes and crass humour, poking fun at the likes of Scream and I Know What You Did Last Summer. For a sequel, more horror movies were selected to be picked apart, like The Exorcist, William Friedkin’s classic 1973 supernatural flick, and Brando was ready to be a part of the gag.
He was cast as Father McFeely, but once he arrived on set, it wasn’t long before he’d have to step back from the role. He filmed a few scenes, but the actor was just too ill to make it work. Having gained a sizable amount of weight that contributed to the development of type two diabetes, Brando’s health had been declining for a while, and in 2001, he suffered a bout of pneumonia.
When it came to shooting Keenen Ivory Wayans’ second instalment in the ill-fated franchise, Brando soon realised that he wasn’t going to be able to complete everything asked of him. So, he was replaced by James Wood, which saved Brando from having Scary Movie 2 as his final movie credit.
Natasha Lyonne, who starred as Megan Voorhees in the film – and shared a scene with Brando – recalled shooting the movie with Entertainment Weekly, which required the ageing actor to grab her breast. In fact, the actor owns the dailies from the shoot, making her the owner of unseen footage of Brando’s last on-screen performance.
“I have a VHS copy of the dailies that I got because Marlon Brando’s final role — sadly for him, but luckily for me — is doing this Exorcist opening teaser. I don’t know what he was thinking, really. I mean, why would he do that?” she said.
Lyonne has fond memories of working with the complicated actor, even though he had quite the reputation as a difficult colleague. She simply couldn’t get over how strange it was for her to be having her boob fondled by a Hollywood legend, after all, she was only 21 at the time.
“He had an oxygen tank, and he just kind of held my boob, because that was in the script. He was supposed to be like, ‘The power of Christ compels you…’ I just remember being like, ‘Ah, this is the surrealism that André Breton, Salvador Dalí were talking about,” Lyonne revealed.
Scary Movie 2 was certainly popular with audiences – it’s a 2000s sleepover staple – although it wasn’t exactly a cinematic masterpiece. It doesn’t hold up to the heights of Lyonne’s other work, like But I’m A Cheerleader or Orange Is The New Black, but she can at least say she got to work with the one and only Marlon Brando – even if he didn’t make it into the final cut of the movie.
