Godfather role was an offer Al Pacino could refuse

Al Pacino did not want to star as Michael Corleone in seminal gangster epic The Godfather, and considered director Francis Ford Coppola “a bit mad” for insisting he take the role.

Film historians have long documented the fact that the unknown Pacino beat famous rivals including Jack Nicholson, Robert Redford and Warren Beatty, as well as a then little-known Robert De Niro, for the role which made him famous. But Pacino told Loaded magazine he was roundly in agreement with the executives at studio Warner Brothers who wanted an established star for the 1972 movie.

“I didn’t want to do The Godfather. I didn’t know what was going on,” said the Oscar-winner. “I thought, ‘How am I going to play this part?’” He added: “No one wanted me. Except for Coppola who was, I thought, a bit mad. He just wanted me. Even I said, ‘What are you doing Francis? They don’t want me’. Of course Warner Brothers said, ‘Who is this kid?! Why do you like this kid? What do you see?’”

The veteran actor, 74, revealed Coppola cast him after watching him play a teenage drug addict on stage, and said Marlon Brando was also not the studio’s first choice to play the Godfather himself, Don Vito Corleone.

“Francis saw me in a play called Does a Tiger Wear a Necktie? I won a Tony for it and he just took a liking to me,” said Pacino. “I must say, very lucky me, because he is a great man and he wanted me and they wouldn’t take me still.”

“I thought, ‘He’s going to lose his job’. They didn’t want Brando either, all due respect.”