Al Pacino's 'Godfather' Secrets Exposed: Petrified Hollywood Icon Met Real-Life Mobster and Wielded Gun Before Playing Michael Corleone — Then Desperately Wanted Out of Film
Al Pacino opened up about meeting a real-life mobster to get inspiration to play Michael Corleone in 'The Godfather.'
Oct. 14 2024, Published 2:09 p.m. ET
Al Pacino went method for his role in The Godfather.
In the Hollywood icon's new memoir, Sonny Boy, Pacino, 84, revealed he visited a real-life member of the mob to get inspiration to play Michael Corleone, RadarOnline.com can reveal.
"I still had to figure out who Michael was to me," he penned in the juicy tell-all. "Michael starts out from a young man we've seen before, getting by, a little loopy, a little lumpy."
Pacino did not win his category that night as Joel Grey took home the Oscar instead.
Luckily for Pacino, his fellow cast member Alfredo Lettieri, who played Virgil Sollozzo, had a friend who was involved in the lifestyle they were portraying in the Francis Ford Coppola film.
"Little Al brought me to a traditional, beautiful, well-kept home. He took me inside and introduced me to the head of the household, a guy who looked like a normal businessman," he recalled. "I shook his hand and said hello, and he was very welcoming."
The City Hall actor was surprised by how ordinary the mobster's life appeared to be and how down to earth the alleged criminal was. "He had a loving family. He had a wife who served us drinks and light snacks on fine porcelain," Pacino noted. "He had two young sons around my age. I was just some crazy actor who had come into his house, trying to absorb as much as I could."
Pacino was nominated for Best Supporting Actor for his performance as Michael Corleone in The Godfather.
"I was being given a taste of how this thing looked and operated in reality, not how it was shown in the movies," the Academy Award winner pointed out. "Not that our host was going to get into any of those details with us. As a matter of fact, we ended up drinking and playing games."
Despite having a lovely evening, there may have been some details that went over Pacino's head. "Many moons later, photos from that night surfaced, showing me in a sweatshirt, laughing away with a drink in my hand, while Little Al showed me a gun. A boys' night out," he wrote.
Pacino bailed on the 1973 Academy Awards leading to plenty of theories.
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Pacino felt immense pressure to bring the gangster to life properly. So much so, he tried to find any way out of being in the project, including twisting his ankle while filming the scene when he escapes a restaurant after shooting another mobster.
"Thank you, God. I'm going to get out of this film!" he recalled thinking to himself during a recent CBS News interview.
Al Pacino twisted his ankle to try to get out of starring in 'The Godfather.'
In the bombshell read, Pacino went on to explain that he nabbed the role after being extremely hesitant to even get on the plane to go to the audition. "(I was told) I would have to screentest for the role, which I had never done before, and that I would have to fly out to the West Coast to do it, which I just didn't want to do," he penned.
"I did not care that it was The Godfather. I was a bit afraid of flying and I didn't want to go to California," the star added. "But my manager, Marty Bregman, said to me, 'You're getting on that f------ plane.' He brought me a pint of whiskey so I could drink it on the flight, and I got there."
The North West Star obtained the excerpts from Sonny Boy.
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