STRICTLY BUSINESS

Al Pacino Says One Scene Saved Him From Being Fired on ‘The Godfather’

Just when he thought he was out, they pulled him back in.

Al Pacino says he was almost fired from his role in The Godfather but was kept in the production after filming the restaurant shooting scene. Writing in his new memoir, Sonny Boy, the 84-year-old actor recalls how Paramount was quickly unhappy with his performance when filming started, according to Page Six, with the studio having wanted Ryan O’Neal, Robert Redford, or Warren Beatty to get the role of Michael Corleone ahead of Pacino. Director Francis Ford Coppola summoned Pacino to a restaurant during the production and told him he was “not cutting it,” Pacino writes, with the actor agreeing that early footage showed there wasn’t “anything spectacular” in his performance. Pacino said Coppola brought forward the shooting scene “to give the doubters back in Hollywood some incentive to believe in me and keep me in the picture,” and that they “kept me in the film” after the scene was performed.