Al Pacino Dominik Bindl/Getty Pictures
Marlon Brando and Al Pacino may need starred in The Godfather over 50 years in the past, however we’re nonetheless studying extra about their time working collectively.
Pacino, 84, is telling brand-new tales from the set of the Oscar-winning movie in his new e book, Sonny Boy: A Memoir.
In an excerpt printed in The Guardian on Saturday, October 12, Pacino instructed a narrative in regards to the first time he sat right down to eat with Brando — and it wasn’t a reasonably sight.
“I had been launched to Marlon Brando briefly at a dinner with all of the solid members earlier than we began filming. Now, as we have been on the brink of do the scene the place Michael finds Vito within the hospital, [director] Francis [Ford Coppola] mentioned, “Why don’t you and Brando have lunch collectively?” he wrote.
Pacino recalled that regardless of Brando being one in every of his heroes — he actually didn’t need to meet with him.
“The discomfort I felt at simply the considered it — You imply I’ve to have lunch with him? Significantly, it f—ing scared me. He was the best residing actor of our time. I grew up on actors like him — bigger than life folks like Clark Gable and Cary Grant. They have been well-known when fame meant one thing, earlier than the bloom went off the rose. However Francis mentioned it’s important to and so I did,” he wrote.
Pacino wrote that the 2 shared their lunch on the hospital the place they have been set to movie the scene collectively.
“He was sitting on one hospital mattress, I used to be sitting on the opposite. He was asking me questions: The place am I from? How lengthy have I been an actor? And he was consuming hen cacciatore along with his palms. His palms have been stuffed with purple sauce. So was his face. And that’s all I might take into consideration the entire time. No matter his phrases have been, my acutely aware thoughts was fixated by the stain-covered sight in entrance of me. He was speaking — gobble, gobble, gobble, gobble — and I used to be simply mesmerized,” wrote Pacino.
Al Pacino and Marlon Brando FilmPublicityArchive/United Archives through Getty Pictures
The Scarface actor mentioned he wasn’t certain how Brando would wipe his palms after the messy meal.
“I used to be questioning, What’s he going to do along with his palms? Ought to I get him a serviette? Earlier than I might, he unfold each his palms throughout the white hospital mattress and smeared the sheets with purple sauce, with out even interested by it, and he saved on speaking. And I assumed, Is that how film stars act? You are able to do something.”
Regardless of his fears, Pacino mentioned that the Superman actor was extraordinarily variety.
“When our lunch was over, Marlon checked out me with these light eyes of his and mentioned, ‘Yeah, child, you’re gonna be all proper.’ I used to be taught to be well mannered and grateful, so I most likely simply mentioned thanks to him. I used to be too scared to say something in any respect. What I ought to have mentioned was “Are you able to outline ‘all proper?’”
Sonny Boy: A Memoir is ready for launch on October 15.