Marlon Brando Prevented a Promising Actor From Being in ‘The Godfather’
Despite being one of the greatest actors of all-time, Marlon Brando was a risky actor to cast in the early 1970s. Brando had amassed the reputation of being a brilliant, but notoriously difficult-to-work-with actor, thanks to his experiences with Elia Kazan on the groundbreaking dramas On the Waterfront and A Streetcar Named Desire. No one could doubt Brando’s brilliance, but that didn’t mean that his personality made him very fun to work with. Even when Brando seemed “uncastable” due to the stories circulating about his off-screen activities, he managed to have a major comeback role in 1972 when he took on perhaps his most beloved role as Don Vito Corleone in Francis Ford Coppola’s gangster film masterpiece The Godfather. Working with Brando was in Coppola’s favor, but that didn’t mean that the notorious The Wild One star didn’t present some difficulties on set. In fact, Brando voiced his opinion on who would be playing his onscreen son well before the cameras started rolling. In a different world, it would’ve been Burt Reynolds, and not Al Pacino, who was starring as Michael Corleone.
Although The Godfather is now recognized as one of the greatest films of all-time, the novel that it was based upon by Mario Puzo wasn’t exactly a literary classic. While entertaining (and a major bestseller at the time of its initial debut), The Godfather was a rather standard airport read. Coppola’s ambitions for the film were greater than the source material; he wanted to transform what was otherwise a standard gangster story into a complex analysis of family, legacy, American politics, and power. In order to do so, Coppola knew that he needed to cast the best actors imaginable for each role in order to ensure that the film’s dramatic material was treated with the sensitivity that it needed.
Coppola’s casting process was notorious, as he had to deal with pressure from Paramount Pictures and producer Al Ruddy to make a film that could also be commercially viable. Although Al Pacino, James Caan, Robert Duvall, and Sterling Hayden are all household names, they weren’t exactly “movie stars” before The Godfather took their careers to the next level. Coppola knew that in order to satisfy Paramount’s desire for a box office hit, he needed to cast a major star as the senior gangster Don Vito Corleone. Brando made perfect sense — he had the experience of working within the industry for several years, and could easily slip into the role of such a veteran family man. He was perfect for the role, but Brando’s popularity also meant that audiences might be more willing to check out The Godfather than they would be if the film had starred a bunch of unknown actors.
