Nobody other than Francis Ford Coppola wanted Al Pacino to play Micheal Corleone in The Godfather. Paramount was set on a star like Robert Redford, Dustin Hoffman, or Jack Nicholson, with Nicholson even getting an offer for the part. However, Nicholson turned down the role.
Pacino wasn't a movie star in 1972, he was actually a well-respected theatre actor who had only accrued a small number of film roles by the time he hit 30. Francis Ford Coppola took notice of Pacino for his role in the 1971 film The Panic in Needle Park and cast him in The Godfather.
Nicholson didn't have much time with The Godfather
In 1982, Jack Nicholson revealed that regardless of how good the opportunity would be, he turned down the part of Michael Corleone for what now would seem a logical and totally understandable choice — he wasn't Italian (via Twitter).
"The studio didn't want Al Pacino at all," Keaton said, noting that she was cast before him in the Francis Ford Coppola classic. She then explained what caused the studio to change their opinion: their chemistry read.
Part of their reasoning was that they didn't think Pacino's creative vision for Corleone was right. Pacino, however, disagreed, but it was ultimately Francis Ford Coppola who was able to change his mind by persuading him to take a second look at the footage.
Orson Welles - Don Vito Corleone, The Godfather (1972)
Marlon Brando was always Francis Ford Coppola's first choice for the role of Don Vito Corleone.
Los Angeles, March 28: “The Godfather” was named the best film of 1972 and its star Marlon Brando, the best actor at the 45th annual Academy Awards presentations here last night — but Brando refused his Oscar.
I always liked him." ―Salvatore Tessio[src] Salvatore "Sal" Tessio was one of Don Vito Corleone's most trusted friends and caporegimes, ruling over the Corleone family's territory in Brooklyn. A Sicilian born youth raised in New York, Tessio married his wife Lucille in 1908.
According to studio executive Robert Evans in his 1994 memoir The Kid Stays in the Picture, Caridi was director Francis Ford Coppola's first choice for the role of Sonny Corleone, but Evans insisted on James Caan because Caridi was too tall to play opposite Al Pacino.
In a separate interview, director Francis Ford Coppola said that when he read The Godfather book, he kept imagining Al Pacino in the part—he never had a second choice for who to cast. Al Pacino and Simonetta Stefanelli in The Godfather. As Pacino recalls, "I got a call from Francis Coppola — a name from the past.
But did you know that Tom Hanks wasn't the first choice for Forrest Gump? In fact, not even second or third. Initially, the film was offered to Bill Murray, John Travolta, and Chevy Chase. All three of them turned down the role and eventually, our true Gump came on the board.
John Travolta was the original choice to play Forrest
They wanted John Travolta, but he passed. It could have been a truly amazing year for Travolta. In 1994, he had his “comeback” by starring in Pulp Fiction. Although Bill Murray and Chevy Chase were also considered, Hanks got the role.
Paulie has seemingly betrayed Vito—and thus the family—by selling him out. In The Godfather, this kind of betrayal is the worst of all sins.
For his breakout role as Michael Corleone in 1972's The Godfather, Al Pacino was reportedly paid $35,000. This relatively small salary was due to him being a relative unknown at the time he was cast, though the fact that the movie launched his career most likely more than made up for the lack of upfront payment.
His ability to think clearly under fire, to be decisive, and to command respect makes him an excellent Godfather. Of Vito's children, he is certainly the best candidate to take over the family. But Michael was never supposed to get involved in the Mafia. He was supposed to become a senator, perhaps even president.
Having seen De Niro's significant acting capabilities, the casting team invited him in for the role. Fortunately, for everyone involved, De Niro dropped out of playing the part of Paulie Gatto to shoot The Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight instead.
Lenny Montana(1926-1992)
Tall and solidly built, this Italian-American professional wrestler turned actor was born Lenny Passaforo in Brooklyn, New York, and is best remembered for his first on-screen role as the not too bright but ever loyal bodyguard Luca Brasi in.
Sofia Coppola, the daughter of director Francis Ford Coppola, was cast in the role of Mary Corleone after several choices dropped out: Winona Ryder discontinued her involvement with the film due to nervous exhaustion, Julia Roberts due to scheduling conflicts, and Madonna was deemed too old for the part by some.
In the late summer of 1948, Sonny Corleone was lured into a trap and was killed at the Jones Beach Causeway by Barzini family hitmen in order to avenge Carlo. The hit was engineered by Emilio Barzini after Carlo, angered at the loss of his income and at the fact that Sonny had beaten him, helped set it up.
Fredo is weaker and less intelligent than his brothers, and so has little power or status within the Corleone crime family.
Described as the child Italian parents prayed to the saints for, Fredo was the weakest and least intelligent of the Corleone brothers; his own brother, Michael, dismissed him as weak and stupid.
At the Long Beach Causeway toll plaza, Barzini's men trap Sonny and shoot him to death. During a meeting with the other crime family dons to establish peace, Vito realizes that Barzini masterminded Sonny's murder. After Michael returns from Sicily, he assumes Sonny's place as Vito's heir apparent.
Brando had decided to boycott the March 1973 Oscars in protest of how Native Americans were portrayed onscreen as well as to pay tribute to the ongoing occupation at Wounded Knee, in which 200 members of the American Indian Movement (AIM) faced off against thousands of U.S. marshals and other federal agents in the ...
At the 1973 Academy Awards, Sacheen Littlefeather refuses the Academy Award for Best Actor on behalf of Marlon Brando who won for his role in The Godfather. She carries a letter from Brando in which he explains he refused the award in protest of American treatment of the Native Americans.
FILE - Sacheen Littlefeather tells the audience at the Academy Awards ceremony in Los Angeles, March 27, 1973, that Marlon Brando was declining to accept his Oscar as best actor for his role in 'The Godfather. '