Al Pacino injured his ankle on the set of Francis Ford Coppola’s “The Godfather,” admitting in a brand new memoir that it was a reduction as a result of it might need gotten him fired. On the time, studios had been nonetheless questioning Pacino’s suitability for gangster Michael Corleone, and the actor felt intense stress.
In an excerpt from The Guardian’s new ebook Sonny Boy, Pacino writes that rumors started to flow into on the set that he can be “fired.” “Once I work, individuals, even workers, really feel uncomfortable. I am very conscious of that,” Pacino wrote. “There was phrase that I used to be going to be fired, and possibly the director can be fired as effectively. It isn’t that Francis did not reduce it – I did not. However he was the one who acquired me on the movie.
Pacino stated Coppola invited him to a restaurant one evening and advised him “you are not going to chop it.” After displaying clips of the movie to date, as Coppola steered, Pacino agreed . “I didn’t assume there was something spectacular right here,” he recalled. Luckily, a key scene – Michael’s revenge on Sollozzo and McCluskey in an Italian restaurant – was moved as much as the filming schedule. It is Pacino’s time to show himself.
However every little thing went flawed when Pacino was filming a stunt wherein Michael jumped right into a shifting automobile. He did not have a stuntman, so it was as much as him – and he missed it.
“My ankle was severely sprained and I could not transfer,” Pacino writes within the excerpt. “Everybody on the set was huddled round me. They had been attempting to carry me up and asking me: Is my ankle damaged? Can I stroll? I do not know.
Pacino is secretly relieved that his time on “The Godfather” could also be coming to an finish. “I lay there pondering, it is a miracle. Oh my god, you saved me. I haven’t got to take this image anymore. I used to be shocked by the sensation of reduction,” he wrote. “It is a miserable expertise to go to work day-after-day and really feel undesirable and like a subordinate, and this harm could be my launch from jail. At the least now they will fireplace me and solid one other actor. to play Michael with out shedding each dime that they had invested within the movie.
However, after all, that did not occur. Regardless of his accidents, Pacino’s efficiency within the restaurant scene satisfied the studio that he was their main man.
“They stored me within the film due to the scene I simply carried out. So I wasn’t fired from ‘The Godfather,'” Pacino wrote. “I do have a plan, a route that I actually consider in the best way I wish to construct this character. I am positive Frances feels the identical manner.
Pacino earned an Academy Award nomination for Finest Supporting Actor for his efficiency and returned for the sequels “The Godfather Half II” and “The Godfather Half III.”
Pacino’s memoir Sonny Boy is out now.
