“I in Turn Served as His Clown.” James Caan Was Horrified on the Set of The Godfather When He Thought He Had Annoyed Marlon Brando
James Caan made a noise during the filming of one of the scenes from The Godfather and thought he might have offended Marlon Brando with it. The film star's reaction surprised him.
The Godfather is a cult masterpiece by Francis Ford Coppola, whose undisputed star was Marlon Brando. In addition to him, the film also starred Al Pacino, Diane Keaton and James Caan, who played Vito Corleone's eldest son Sonny. His role in Coppola's work established him in Hollywood.
On the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the iconic movie, Caan, during an interview with the A.V. Club talked about his favorite scene from the film, which was not at all his fondest memory from the set, as during its filming the actor thought he made Marlon Brando angry. It's worth noting at this point that this was one of the first scenes they shot with each other, so Caan went on to try to make a good impression on his co-star, and they still had a lot of cooperation ahead of them, so it was important to him not to spoil anything in their relationship.
Coppola encouraged the actors of The Godfather to improvise so that they would get more into the characters they were playing and do things they thought would suit them. And just such improvisation during his favorite scene was undertaken by Caan.
So there’s a scene where [Robert Duvall] comes back from the horse’s head scene and we’re sitting with Brando in the living room. Brando, me and Bobby are sitting there, and he’s talking to him about the horse’s head incident. And when I sit down, this is one of the first scenes I shot with Brando. There’s a bowl of nuts to my left, walnuts. And I’m listening, hunched over. They’re to the left to me, the both of them, with a little table between them. And for whatever reason, Brando’s talking or Bobby’s talking, I unconsciously picked a nut out of the bowl, but they were not shelled. The shell was still on. And all of a sudden, I started to play with the nut. Now I had it in my hand and I tried to open it a little bit, and right in the middle of a sentence of Brando’s, he just lifts his head and looks at me, stares at me. And I’m going as Jimmy Caan, oh f**k.
Caan feared that the noise he made with the help of the nut might have disturbed the performing and speaking Brando. He felt a sense of dread sweep over him at that moment, thinking he had offended the star with it.
I upstaged him. I didn’t mean to. I didn’t even try to make noise. I’m sitting there with this f**kin’ nut in my hand and I don’t know what to do with it now, you know, because it was Brando. And Brando just looked at me, and then I had to finish. So I opened it up very, very quietly and started eating it a little, little, little bit, little by little. And when he said cut, Brando started punching his fist and laughed and said, that was great. I said, what are you talking about? Because he was talking about Sonny not being a Don, like his mind is so scattered and whatever with the girls, with this and that. And the idea that I was playing with the f**kin’ nut proves it when he’s talking about serious business. So that turned out great. So that was a good scene.
The situation on the set of The Godfather shows that there is no such thing as a bad thing that would not turn out for good. The actor's minor slip-up turned out to be a good idea, which was appreciated by Marlon Brando. The star didn't react as Caan would have expected. The Sonny actor even confessed that he often entertained his film father on the set.
I loved Brando by the way, man. He was the greatest, and I in turn served as his fuckin’ clown because he laughed – everything I said, everything I did, he laughed. All day! I mean, it was hysterical.
As you can see, spontaneous decisions can sometimes lead to really good things. And Caan was unnecessarily so afraid of his co-star.
