
Al Pacino was constantly on the verge of getting fired from The Godfather but director Francis Ford Coppola saved the role that launched his career by shifting around shooting sequences to move up a scene – the one where Michael Corleone commits to the family business by popping another mobster and a crooked cop in a restaurant.
“They were going to let me go. Francis said, ‘I want you to know, I believe in you. Francis pushes that scene forward. The studio liked it,” Pacino said at a screening of the restored film for its 50th anniversary as part of Tribeca Festival’s retrospective series. The rest is history, and maybe destiny. When he first got the part, Pacino said, he called his grandmother. She informed him that his late grandfather actually came from the town of Corleone in Sicily.
In a wide-ranging Q&a with author Michael Hainey in front an adoring crowd,
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“They were going to let me go. Francis said, ‘I want you to know, I believe in you. Francis pushes that scene forward. The studio liked it,” Pacino said at a screening of the restored film for its 50th anniversary as part of Tribeca Festival’s retrospective series. The rest is history, and maybe destiny. When he first got the part, Pacino said, he called his grandmother. She informed him that his late grandfather actually came from the town of Corleone in Sicily.
In a wide-ranging Q&a with author Michael Hainey in front an adoring crowd,