Al Pacino reveals he was almost fired from "The Godfather" early in filming

In his memoir 'Sonny Boy', Al Pacino recently has opened the closet of near-firing from 'The Godfather'. This is after the actor led the finest performance ever seen on the screen with his portrayal of Michael Corleone. The actor revealed that the studio did not even believe he was good enough to portray the character. Despite earning an Oscar nomination from his role, it was not smooth sailing initially.

In his own book, Pacino admits that only a week or so into shooting, Francis Ford Coppola came to him and said that the studio is not pleased with his performance. First choice for the role were to be Ryan O'Neal, Robert Redford, and Warren Beatty. And though Coppola had argued long and hard to get the role to Pacino, the pressure was piling up on the director to get rid of him.

Al confesses that the earlier scenes did not work for him since he was playing under Michael's character intentionally to create an explosion from this quiet thoughtful son into a strong mafia leader. He clarifies to show this metamorphosis process of Michael in the film, instead of starting off with him as a strong aggressive figure. The studio executives never liked it for this reason; it just didn't build up the intensity required in Pacino's performance.

Coppola did not want to lose Pacino; so, he decided to shoot the studio up with a scenario to prove that they had the right man for the role. In the film, there is one of the most crucial scenes-the restaurant shooting, where Michael murders two enemies in cold blood. This is a tense and dramatic moment, and Coppola hoped that this would be enough to prove that Pacino can play the role.

According to Pacino, that was everything he had in giving to that scene; his character took more than 15 hours of shooting that close-range shooting scene with Al Lettieri and Sterling Hayden's characters. He was really under pressure because Pacino knew his fate in the movie was riding on that scene.

Fortunately, his performance in that pivotal scene was powerful enough to convince the studio, and he got the part of Michael Corleone. As Pacino mentioned, his co-actors were extremely hospitable during those challenging periods. They could obviously feel that he was trying to bear an enormous load. This was because his livelihood was under threat, and they did everything possible to help him remain optimistic.

Looking back, it's difficult to imagine anyone else playing Michael Corleone. However, as Pacino's own memoir suggests, becoming one of the cinema's most iconic characters wasn't as easy as most of the world might believe.