The Godfather Part II: The Offer Al Pacino Refused

The Godfather Part II very nearly never got made.

The stumbling block was Al Pacino.

They sent him the script, he thought it wasn’t good enough, and he said he’d pass.

So the producers did what usually works, which is offer more money. He said no. They offered more. Still no. They offered more again. STILL NO.

By the time they’d finished, the offer on the table was worth well over three million in today’s money.

In the end Francis Ford Coppola had to step in and stop them raising it any further, because he knew the fee wasn’t why Al was turning the part down. It was the script.

Then he told them to make Al another offer.

An offer he couldn’t refuse.

Francis said he would keep rewriting the script, with Al’s input, until Al thought it was right.

Al accepted and got on a flight to San Francisco with his friend and acting teacher Charlie Laughton. They shut themselves in a hotel room with Francis for the week and worked on it. By the end of the week it was done, and the rest, as they say, is history.

What does this tell us?

It makes sense that he’s one of the world’s best actors, because he applied that to everything he did, including his own acting. He developed his ability with the best acting coaches he could find, to the highest standard he could reach.

Yes, you know where this is leading. That’s the standard I want you holding yourself to every time you work on a scene.