Talia Shire Reflects on Working With Marlon Brando in The Godfather: ‘He Really Wanted You To Be Great In a Scene’
The Godfather is notable for many famous lines and scenes. Marlon Brando and Al Pacino may steal the show in The Godfather, but a few other members of the Corleone family deserve our attention. For example, Talia Shire notably portrayed Don Vito Corleone’s youngest child and only daughter, Connie, in all three movies, earning a Best Supporting Actress Oscar nomination along the way for her role in The Godfather II.
“I love the movie because it’s a very Shakespearean drama,” Shire says. The actress, 75, shares more of her memories of The Godfather, how she got the part, what it was like working with Marlon Brando and how close she is the with cast today.
Did you have to audition, or did Francis Ford Coppola, your brother, just cast you?
The first time I asked him to audition, he said, “No, no, no.” Then about a month later, [author] Mario [Puzo] said [to Coppola], “Why not just audition her?” I remember flying to New York and doing the scene where Connie gets beaten up. I could hear Francis crying behind me.
She interested me because she was somebody who stays in the kitchen. I knew I could find my way in there. But look what happens to her: She marries a guy who murders her brother, and he gets murdered by another brother. She can’t be a total weepy character, but she’s the agent of a kind of female victimhood. She changes a lot by the third movie.
He was a breathtaking man and brought tremendous elegance to the character. Look at the way he dances with me in that wedding scene. But what I found was that he was also incredibly charismatic, generous and disciplined. He really wanted you to be great in a scene.
