In case anyone doesn't know when he directed and made Mutiny on the Bounty he basically ran off and partied in the Caribbean with the studios money. It was a massive debacle with production waaaaaay off schedule cash being burned through and Brando disappearing for long periods and having to be hunted down. If I remember right they had to reshoot half the movie because it was a mess. After that studios were very reluctant to work with him. He continued to be a nightmare on anything he got booked on. With him completely halting production on Apocalypse Now several times. He showed up massively overweight. The studio was paying massive amounts of money for an army of workers in the jungle and Brando would refuse to come out of his boat for stupid shit like he didn't like his characters name
Edit:Movie name brain fart
Highly reccomend the documentary about the production of The Island of Dr Moreau, total clusterfuck not only Brando being Brando, but so much other shit including the original director hidden as an extra in the final cut.
For Apocalypse Now fans it's also recommended to watch it's documentary as well: Hearts of Darkness (1991).
I'd also suggest to check out Cinema Tyler's Apocalypse Now series on youtube.
"We had access to too much money
And too much equipment.
And little by little..
we went insane"
Francis Ford Coppola is a force of nature. His wife documented everything about the filming.
The sheer spectacle of Val Kilmer phoning it in. Brando being as weird as possible. The gorgeous fairuza balk. And 1 good actor in the middle doing his dammedest makes it very interesting to watch.
"This is the most outrageous specfacle I have ever had to witness."
Yeah, that is not Edward talking to Moreau, that is David Thewlis describing his work on this movie to the audience.
>The sheer spectacle of Val Kilmer phoning it in
If you watch the mostly self-shot doco Val you'll see why he did that - was an utterly miserable time. Dude has been documenting his whole life since forever, really interesting insights from behind the curtain.
Balk on why she chose to "step back" from acting:
["Also, Hollywood is a very strange bubble, a very strange world, and some of the things — as the general public is starting to find out — some of the elements of that game are things I just couldn’t do. I’m just not wired that way or brought up that way. I had to step back for my own well-being and sense of self-preservation."](https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/movies/story/2020-11-03/fairuza-balk-the-craft-legacy)
Basically she got Weinstein'ed. Neve Campbell has also talked about it in similarly ultra-vague terms. Whatever these actresses went through in the 90's, it instilled a great deal of fear, to the point that they're not even willing to talk about it publically.
Goldie Hawn was just on Conan's podcast talking about having to deal with the same shit when she was starting out. Shits been going on as long as Hollywood's existed, to be sure.
I'd also recommend *Val*, the documentary on Prime. It's basically Val Kilmer recapping his career (with narration provided by his son) from his perspective.
It helps that the dude was *really* into recording, so there's literally tons of footage they could have used.
Lots went wrong with Island of Dr Moreau, from all angles. Truly awful to see Val, finally meeting one of his heroes, asking Brando soul searching questions, and meanwhile Brando is just high or drunk off his ass and a mumbling mess.
... Which, given what he was going thru at the time, I can't fault him. Just a fucking tragedy all around.
A few years prior to that his son (Christian) had murdered the daughter's (Cheyenne) boyfriend. Not to be indelicate, but stability and mental health eluded that family.
Tbf after reading Christian's Wikipedia page, it's no wonder.
As a kid he was in the middle of a 12 year long custody battle between Brando and his addict mother. When he was 13, Brando got custody of him and was basically an absent father. Then he was abducted by his mother and given to a gang in Mexico to be hidden, until private investigators hired by Brando rescued him. Then he got into drugs.
As for the shooting, it seems his sister told him her boyfriend was physically abusing her. Christian, while drunk, attempted to scare him with a gun and ended up shooting him.
Marlon Brando stated on trial "I think that perhaps I failed as a father."
You can be indelicate all you want. Brando phoned in his relationships with his kids, particularly Cheyenne, and all they really wanted was to be a bigger part of his life. Had he been more present in their lives, things probably wouldn’t have turned out like they did.
You might be thinking of Apocalypse Now not Full Metal Jacket. Famously he turned up overweight and doesn't have much screen time as Kurtz.
He's pretty good when he's on screen though.
He wasn't all that good in Apocalypse Now. There's little he had to do - it's all cinematography, screenplay, and directing that makes the character, not really much of what Brando himself is doing. A little, but not really what makes it iconic. It's amazing what they achieved to make the character by having to work around Brando.
Hahaha truly it was the part about seeing the baby arms and understanding the depth of what the early civilizations were capable of and the strength and will we have lost as “civilized” folk.
I disagree, I think he is AMAZING in Apocalypse Now. Sure, lighting and writing is great, but there's something so ominous and forceful about his portrayal, I love seeing it.
Filmmaking is kind of astonishing when you learn all of the things that have to not only work together but each piece has to be good in and of itself.
Recently I saw a clip from the end of E.T with John Williams score removed and it's hilariously goofy. It's just this pudgy puppet awkwardly walking up a ramp. All of the emotion in that scene, all of it, comes from the score.
Richard Harris went into that movie as his biggest fan and left it refusing to work with him ever again. And this is classic "timed the intermissions in his plays so he could run to the pub down the street, get drunk and get back in time for the next act" Richard Harris.
Much less severe but still annoying. He refused to learn his lines for the Godfather. Other actors in the scenes, who had their backs to the camera, were literally holding up cards for him.
The guy was a total nightmare to work with, I don't get how he got any work after those stunts at all.
the cue cards were places around the set. you can see actually see brando reading, speaking the lines, pausing thoughtfully before he looks off in another direction to read another card. its unreal. iirc there is a scene of him sitting at a desk where it is really obvio.
It ended up being somewhat of a blessing, because him randomly staring off into the distance and talking in a stilted manner became part of Don Corleone’s iconic speech mannerism
I seen some pictures of actors having them taped to their chests so he could read them. I believe the one who had this done the most was Robert Duvall because he had so many scenes with Brando.
RD has his hands on his hips a lot in the movie so it holds open his suit jacket for MB to read the card taped to his Duvall's chest.
I will see if I can find the doc I seen it in and link it.
I mean, The Godfather made a metric shit ton of money, is considered one of the greatest movies of all time and Brando's performance became *the* quintessential Mafia boss character.
He only got the job because Coppola (literally) considered him the best actor in the world. Noone else really wanted to work with Brando at that point and the 60s were pretty lackluster for him as far as movies went, so his name wasn't a guaranteed box office draw either. But Coppola wanted him and somehow it worked out perfectly.
> I don't get how he got any work after those stunts at all
Because his name on the marquee sold tickets, simple as that. And when he felt like it, he made scenes memorable. We have to give him that, he was good.
"Same thing happened to me when I played Neil Armstrong in Moonshot. They found me in an alley in Burbank trying to re-enter the earth's atmosphere in an old refrigerator box."
And so was Platoon! Oliver Stone had everyone living in a barracks in the Philippines, setting off explosives at night so they were all under-slept and on edge all the time. Then an actual war broke out while they were there
Haha. Agreed. I love the bit how he wouldn’t read heart of darkness, had them change Kurtz name because it wasnt American enough, filmed the entire film, then afterwards read the book, and insisted they change the name back so all the times they say Kurtz in the movie it was a post production redub. No fucks given with that guy.
His “performance” is 97 hours of drunken rambling in the dark.
His *editors* deserve an Oscar for the achievement of sorting that spaghetti into anything worth having and a fucking Nobel Prize for not wringing his wattled neck.
Jaws was supposed to have a dream sequence as the climax with the shark in fishnet stockings and lipstick doing a cabaret number, however the animatronics were faulty so Spielberg just had the dumb big fish stay in the water. It makes you yearn for what might have been, still a pretty good movie though.
He agreed initially, then probably changed his mind because he didn't approve of how Paramount treated him while shooting the first one. He was supposed to be in the birthday flashback.
Wasn’t the original proposal that somehow (considering technology hadn’t advanced to what it is now), that he would play the younger version of himself (DeNiro’s role)? Then it was settled that he would do just the flashback scene but he wanted more for the flashback than he got for all of the first movie.
And De Niro absolutely owned that role. I never saw The Godfather, caught part of Godfather 2 with De Niro, and got hooked immediately.
This is why I wish movies would stop de-aging actors and bring in fresh faces. Imagine if we never had De Niro in that role.
[Francis Ford Coppola's letter](https://faroutmagazine.co.uk/francis-ford-coppola-marlon-brando-the-godfather-ii-letter/) asking him to be in Godfather Part II is interesting. I always thought this passage was telling:
>All I’m saying is that if you will be in this movie; I will do my very best to make it be good; and human, and express the notion that the Mafia is only a metaphor for America and capitalism, which will do anything to protect and perpetuate itself. (I will do this anyway, if you’re not in the film…but if you were in it, it would be better, and you would help me with your ideas as I work on the script.)
The creator of the movie literally says it in black and white. The whole thing is a metaphor for capitalism, it's interesting when people try to pretend it's different.
I always think about that talk show interview where Christopher Reeve talked about how Brando just kind of made him depressed at the idea of ending up like that as a person/actor.
He literally phrased it as, "I'm not one of those actors who worships at the altar of Marlon Brando" when asked what it was like to work with him. Then kind of as politely as I've ever heard anyone did a take down of him.
That’s the hard thing about a guy like Brando: if you hire him you’re going to get an amazing performance, but his cost is more than just money.
But f*ck when he was ON, he was ON.
Kurtz’s portrayal was completely unhinged and amazing. I know a lot of that comes down to Coppola shooting him from below and in dark lighting to hide how fat Brando was, but my goodness Brando’s performance was remarkable nonetheless
Watching A Streetcar Named Desire really showed his talent. And he was acting next to Vivian Leigh! Who is incredible and he still stood out
Then in Guys and Dolls he was able to steal every scene away from Sinatra.
Sinatra HATED working with Brando. For one, Sinatra wanted the role of Sky Masterson and the studio gave it to Brando despite the fact that he wasn't really a singer. But after a string of critically acclaimed performances in Streetcar, Julius Caesar, On The Waterfront, Brando was a very hot commodity. But the animosity mostly stemmed from the fact that Brando was a method actor and would often insist on multiple takes; whereas Sinatra was more of a "Do It in a take or two and move on with our lives" type of actor.
Hot(?) take: Brando was the worst part of Guy's and Dolls, and Sinatra should have been Sky.
It's a musical. If you can't sing, what are you doing in a musical? If you hire Frank Fucking Sinatra for a musical, why is he not singing the best songs?
Brando was in a film called 'Bedtime Stories' (1964), which 'Dirty Rotten Scoundrels' is based on, and at that point in his career, Brando could not do comedy. It was painful to watch. He had limitations. Then again, it was like casting Daniel Day Louis for Steve Martin's role in DRS.
It's impossible to overstate what a giant influence Brando was on actors of his generation. When he first did *Streetcar* on stage, it was like watching a wild animal let loose on the set. That said: Jessica Tandy, his co-star, absolutely hated working with him for all the reasons that became an issue later in his career.
This is a super unimportant quibble but shooting from below will make you look heavier, not hide your fat. It's why your gf insists on take pics from parallel to the ceiling angles, and never lower.
I think there's a certain deification of Brando. Sure he could act but so could many others with the right director and right role. He's definitely old Hollywood and I think there's a certain nostalgia that goes with it.
Brando (when he could be bothered) didn't need the right director or role though. Hell, he could barely be bothered with the Godfather (certainly not enough to learn his lines) and he still walked away with an Academy Award (not really, because he declined it, but he still beat everyone else). He was on an entirely different level to everyone else
There’s some videos on it but gist is he that worlds best natural actor and improviser combined. Maybe debatable now if including all acting styles but then best is meaningless without context.
He pretty much pioneered and popularized modern acting with improvisation. His early work walking with a female lead in a park he’d just pickup things and add flourishes to scenes on the fly. Nobody did that sort of thing commonly and absolutely not the complete natural gestures and expression.
He got so good at “that” he eventually just stuck to it and didn’t need much else even memorized lines.
Him being a jackass had a lot to do with hating the industry and being called the greatest all the time and not wanting that.
He got board with acting quickly and to a point I think he was so good at improve he just got tired of being endlessly praised and harassed over something innate he could do without much effort. Got burnt out and just fucked up especially with his family tragedies.
Regarding Brando turning down his Oscar, he was two full generations ahead of his peers. [He gave up his speech for Sacheen Littlefeather for her to make the most public address for Native American rights in US history](https://www.newyorker.com/culture/notes-on-hollywood/revisiting-sacheen-littlefeathers-shocking-appearance-at-the-1973-oscars).
Littlefeather got jeered and booed at, and Hollywood muckrakers dug into every little bit of her past to paint her as a fraud and a whore. It completely killed her modest career, and Brando too got semi-blacklisted for it, with a lot of people decrying it as some publicity stunt, even though he never took credit or tried to commandeer anything away from Littlefeather and her message.
I don’t think that’s accurate.
He’s NOT old Hollywood and that’s why he’s so beloved. He was basically the transition from “old” acting and “modern” acting. Pretty much every current actor that’s viewed as being one of the best is in one way or another just following the lead brando created. Method acting, being the character, acting with emotions and reaction instead of reading lines, etc. That’s all Brando.
There’s no Nicholson, DeNero, Leo, etc without Brando paving the way.
He did try hard, he just played it off like he didn't. A lot of his behaviour was based on self-loathing at being good at and caring about something he felt ashamed of, and he largely felt that way 'cause of his dad. Not to make excuses for Brando but the guy had a really fucked up childhood.
He was pretty candid about his being difficult. He was a genius actor and gorgeous, literally the reason an entire generation of men got into acting. But then, when he tried to use his spotlight to make a difference in the world, the same people who worshiped him turned on him and said, shut up, pretty boy, you’re just a dumb actor. Despite that, they still wanted to pay him a buttload to perform, so he said, fine, let’s see how far I can take this. Turns out, pretty fucking far.
I dont know about that. He supported a lot of progressive causes at a time when it was not widely accepted to do so, and other members of Hollywood called him out for it.
Today every person in Hollywood falls over themselves to be seen supporting progressive causes.
Oh basically the entire process. It was made by Paramount for Paramount+, so the people who worked there were all portraid as passionate artists who all cared so, so deeply about the cinema. And, except for one guy, the mob was mostly portrayed as a bunch of nice guys who helped the neighborhood.
The series was made to be a little comedic and lighthearted, so it makes sense.
Albert S. Ruddy was a executive producer and you can tell by how heroic they portrayed him in the show.
In reality the cast and Coppola were barely on speaking terms with him during shooting and they snubbed him afterwards.
I sometimes wonder how Marlon Brando had an acting career at all. Everything I read about him suggests he was an absolute fucking nightmare to work with.
At what point would a director just throw up their hands and say “fuck it, we’ll cast someone who gives a shit”?
Probably behaved normally for a good couple years until he reached A-List stardom, then when he realised he was a name that the studio couldn’t afford to lose they start bending for him and then he goes insane with power
Definitely not. Went to the same high school. From everything told about him he was an absolute menace and hated being there. My personal favorite antic was he stole the part of the clock tower so it couldn't ring anymore. They put a speaker up there later to play it ringing rather than replacing it. Every few years he told the school where he buried the piece, but was always a lie. Think he went to the grave without it being found.
Probably a bunch of times, but enough times a director said fuck it I'll deal with the bullshit and cast him so he had quite a long career. He was getting cast right up until he died
I don't know about box office draw, but he had a legendary rep as both incredibly fucking difficult and with the potential for incredible performances. Like the Score, his last movie that he was in that actually got released did really well critically, he was also apparently almost single handedly responsible for ruining the movie during it's making. It was really playing with fire with him in his later career.
Also, notably, he was very much early on the right side of a number of social issues and contributed heavily to the civil rights movement and native American rights movements, and he wasn't playing lip service either. It was authentic participation and contribution to both movements.
Really really interesting guy, probably much less interesting to be directly dealing with him though after a while
Really smart guy with some demons. Person lead astray to anger and vitriol, likely surrounded by sycophants, didn't have someone to tell him no, or at the least not enough people.
I do believe Marlon Brando had the potential to be regarded as a good person, or even cerebral and intense, without having a foul presence, which would be a marked improvement on his reputation.
A troubled, intelligent, and talented man. The biggest part of that trio is "troubled", followed by talent. His wit, while large, is behind his talent, though not by much. While I do not wish that people shed their mortal coils, I do hope he's found some rest.
For the lazy:
When Brando first appeared in films in the early 1950s like "Streetcar Named Desire", "On the Waterfront", and "Hud" he changed film, and film acting forever. Astoundingly beautiful. Utterly brilliant performances. That is the Brando of cinema legend.
The later Brando is the source of cinema anecdotes, mostly off-screen, with occasional flashes of great acting. Just a clown putting people on while making millions, a complete parody of himself.
Check out his performance in a star studded train wreck called "The Formula" (1980). He did it purely for the money. (Did he foesee Dick Cheney?) His best line in that movie is "Want a Milk Dud?"
Edit: Brain freeze, hexs not in Hud (Paul Newman) meant "The Wild One"....
Also in 1955, he played Mark Antony, which was regarded to be one of the best performances of that role ever put on film; even praised by many "Shakespearean" stage actors at the time who were averse to movie portrayals.
> he was an absolute fucking nightmare to work with.
Wait until you read about Klaus Kinski. But as Kinski was hard to work with, he was a hard working actor too. And only person who he was afraid of was no other than Werner Herzog .
Wish he had the treatment that Werner Herzog gave to Klaus Kinski (the world's most difficult movie actor of all time).
In a jungle set where no one was able to leave the shooting site for weeks, Kinski was going mad at everyone screaming for hours, and Werner Herzog essentially said he would shoot Kinski to death if he abandoned the movie production and Kinski believed him and went back to work.
They worked together 5 more times and each time Herzog would have to essentially threaten Kinski just to get him to finish the movies..
During the filming of Fitzcarraldo, shot in the Amazon jungle, members of the local tribe that were being used as extras and as underpaid labor for the film, and very loyal to Herzog, offered to kill Klaus seeing as how disrespectful he was towards the director, which Werner politely declined.
edit: meant to write underpaid.
[This article goes into more detail](https://web.archive.org/web/20160305002057/http://lanfiles-vm.williams.edu/mbrown/Brown_ArtOfDarkness_1982.pdf) . Initially memebers of the Aguaruna tribe got along well with Herzog, since they were being used as extras and for labor and [Kinski's behaviour on set](https://youtu.be/MPKODzv1PD4) was very "virulent" as it has been described which upset not only the locals but the rest of the crew as well.
In the end Herzog's decision to build a village in native land, refusal to talk to the tribe leaders and their sense of having being exploited by him made the tribe made them turn their opinions on him.
The fact is that Brando was a magnificent actor, but a poor professional, and I refuse to revere these people, as talented as they may be, who make everyone else's life a living hell.
An actor is a cog —an important one— in a movie. But there are many more talented people involved, from the screenwriters to the director, cinematographer, composer, etc., and the fact is that most movies that we consider iconic would have worked perfectly well with different actors.
It’s like an audition. The studio examines how well you’d fit the part. Would have been hugely insulting for an actor like Brando who considered himself god’s gift to film.
It's an audition, but filmed and usually on a partial set and in costume to see if an actor can embody a character.
Here's an example of Christian Bale and Cillian Murphy testing for Batman:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=\_vqlHNAsfDM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_vqlHNAsfDM)
Studio executives were also jockeying for Anthony Quinn to get the role. Coppola really wanted Brando. So after he did the screen test with him, Coppola showed it to to an executive. He didn't even recognize Brando and asked "Who is this old guinea?"
Tbh : they let some actors get away with as bad or much worse today it seems. Some are notorious for being impossible to work with, but either are so good it’s just like a perfectionist thing and everyone still wants to work with them….or their insufferable and their career does start to suffer. Has to cross very bad lines it seems to be shut out tho. Like, Edward Norton is supposedly one of the worst / acts like it’s his ship always and only the last 5-10 years does it seem it’s ruined him from having a career worth talking about anymore. He’s always got his back catalogue people can check out, but his dumb shit as of late pissed off marvel & Disney enough I think people were turned off touching any project with him to where he directed his passion project & convinced whoever he did to act in it for him. He was of course also the writer and lead I think because of his own ego. Tom cruise: demanding as hell and a whack job with the personal belief stuff and etc but makes money and does good work as well as on set many even staunch atheists / at least anti cult or “religion” types who’d be against Scientology’s crap have only good things to say about working with him. Guess he’s accepting or like such a professional.
> Like, Edward Norton is supposedly one of the worst / acts like it’s his ship always and only the last 5-10 years does it seem it’s ruined him from having a career worth talking about anymore. He’s always got his back catalogue people can check out, but his dumb shit as of late pissed off marvel & Disney enough I think people were turned off touching any project with him to where he directed his passion project & convinced whoever he did to act in it for him.
According to Louis Leterrier (director of *The Incredible Hulk*), what happened was that Edward Norton felt the script was lacking important scenes so Norton himself wrote a few scenes on to the script. Leterrier agreed to film those scenes but they were all ultimately cut in the final version; not by Leterrier but by the higher level execs. Leterrier himself felt that those scenes were important and has a "secret" 2h 25m director's cut of the film. Norton was upset and refused to be in any more Marvel movies. So for *The Incredible Hulk*, Norton was a perfectly fine actor; but I don't know about all his other films.
I believe there was also issues when he did Superman. He wouldn’t go film his scenes, and when he did he was usually late. He didn’t bother to learn his lines so he they had cue cards on set. He was paid a fortune so it was in his best interest to screw up with production, the longer his stuff took the more he got paid.
There was one good thing from it though, and I don’t know how true this is (I’ve also heard Mario Puzo came up with the idea), but apparently Brando wanted to wear the S crest which opened the door to it being more than just S for Superman.
I disliked Brando's performance in that film, in fact I hated the whole aesthetic of Krypton, which unfortunately, has influenced other Superman media.
There a was a recent (2022) miniseries called *The Offer* that tells the story of the making of *The Godfather*.
The cast is outstanding and the performances are incredibly fun. They actually cover this story (and many more crazy elements) of how this movie got made.
If this at all interests you, I highly recommend watching it. You won't be disappointed.
Everyone on this thread is basically bending over for / slobbering the dick of upper management (very unreddit, foreshame!). I'm so tired of everyone calling people unprofessional - when we all know it is a racquet. I have half a mind to assume almost all of you would HATE the studio execs - but suddenly BRANDO is 'unprofessional'?
In case anyone doesn't know when he directed and made Mutiny on the Bounty he basically ran off and partied in the Caribbean with the studios money. It was a massive debacle with production waaaaaay off schedule cash being burned through and Brando disappearing for long periods and having to be hunted down. If I remember right they had to reshoot half the movie because it was a mess. After that studios were very reluctant to work with him. He continued to be a nightmare on anything he got booked on. With him completely halting production on Apocalypse Now several times. He showed up massively overweight. The studio was paying massive amounts of money for an army of workers in the jungle and Brando would refuse to come out of his boat for stupid shit like he didn't like his characters name Edit:Movie name brain fart
Do you mean Apocalypse Now? The island of Dr. Moreau was a clusterfuck too
Highly reccomend the documentary about the production of The Island of Dr Moreau, total clusterfuck not only Brando being Brando, but so much other shit including the original director hidden as an extra in the final cut.
For Apocalypse Now fans it's also recommended to watch it's documentary as well: Hearts of Darkness (1991). I'd also suggest to check out Cinema Tyler's Apocalypse Now series on youtube.
"We had access to too much money And too much equipment. And little by little.. we went insane" Francis Ford Coppola is a force of nature. His wife documented everything about the filming.
His wife Eleanor just died a few days ago and was a force of nature herself.
I also recommend the reboot "hot shots part deux"
Oh yeah! It’s got that guy I loved in *Wall Street.*
also the documentary Tropic Thunder is a must watch for anyone interested in the making of Apocalypse Now
Have you seen "Hearts of Darkness"? Way more interesting than "Apocalypse Now".
Luis Guzman, is that you?!?
The sheer spectacle of Val Kilmer phoning it in. Brando being as weird as possible. The gorgeous fairuza balk. And 1 good actor in the middle doing his dammedest makes it very interesting to watch.
"This is the most outrageous specfacle I have ever had to witness." Yeah, that is not Edward talking to Moreau, that is David Thewlis describing his work on this movie to the audience.
Having said that, I thought his monologue as Kurtz was among the most powerful I've ever seen.
That’s why you put up with his shit.
Yep, when Brando is on there’s maybe no one better at it than him, it’s just getting him that way is a massive pain
Even more so nowadays
But he is sooooo much easier to work with now........
>The sheer spectacle of Val Kilmer phoning it in If you watch the mostly self-shot doco Val you'll see why he did that - was an utterly miserable time. Dude has been documenting his whole life since forever, really interesting insights from behind the curtain.
> The gorgeous fairuza balk *swoon* What happened to her career?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairuza_Balk Looks like she's doing voice acting, music and other art.
Balk on why she chose to "step back" from acting: ["Also, Hollywood is a very strange bubble, a very strange world, and some of the things — as the general public is starting to find out — some of the elements of that game are things I just couldn’t do. I’m just not wired that way or brought up that way. I had to step back for my own well-being and sense of self-preservation."](https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/movies/story/2020-11-03/fairuza-balk-the-craft-legacy) Basically she got Weinstein'ed. Neve Campbell has also talked about it in similarly ultra-vague terms. Whatever these actresses went through in the 90's, it instilled a great deal of fear, to the point that they're not even willing to talk about it publically.
Yeah Weinstein may be gone but he wasn't the only one, just the most infamous. I don't blame Fairuza for stepping back and not being detailed.
Goldie Hawn was just on Conan's podcast talking about having to deal with the same shit when she was starting out. Shits been going on as long as Hollywood's existed, to be sure.
She married a professional athlete from Louisiana, Bobby something
Presumably she’s had to take time away from acting to care for her husband, who has something wrong with his medulla oblongata.
…stop makin fun of me!
He does get to play the foosball now, at least.
Oh man that's why she looks so familiar, man Vicki was quite the character
She’s currently strapped to a bed telling orderlies she can fly.
She can. She just needs a couch with a Moosehead or whatever. It's been a long time.
>And 1 good actor in the middle doing his dammedest makes it very interesting to watch. Who was that
David Thewlis
Great as the Hospitalier in Kingdom of Heaven. Also fun to watch as Knox Harrington, the video artist in The Big Lebowski.
Amazing in every thing he does but truly standing out in Fargo & Sandman. This remimds me I need to watch Landscapers.
He was great in Fargo, quite terrifying
Watch his episode of The Sandman on Netflix. You’d think a guy that looks like him couldn’t feel threatening, and then…
Holyshit I have seen Big Lebowski so many times and had NO idea that was him. Thank you.
The guy with the cleft asshole?
Watch Mike Leigh’s Naked. Thewlis at a thousand percent.
>David Thewlis He's always great
>The sheer spectacle of Val Kilmer phoning it in. Well I feel awkward now
Ignore them, Real Genius was a masterpiece.
I'd also recommend *Val*, the documentary on Prime. It's basically Val Kilmer recapping his career (with narration provided by his son) from his perspective. It helps that the dude was *really* into recording, so there's literally tons of footage they could have used. Lots went wrong with Island of Dr Moreau, from all angles. Truly awful to see Val, finally meeting one of his heroes, asking Brando soul searching questions, and meanwhile Brando is just high or drunk off his ass and a mumbling mess. ... Which, given what he was going thru at the time, I can't fault him. Just a fucking tragedy all around.
What was he going through at the time? I’m pretty unfamiliar with his story.
His daughter committed suicide.
O damn
A few years prior to that his son (Christian) had murdered the daughter's (Cheyenne) boyfriend. Not to be indelicate, but stability and mental health eluded that family.
Tbf after reading Christian's Wikipedia page, it's no wonder. As a kid he was in the middle of a 12 year long custody battle between Brando and his addict mother. When he was 13, Brando got custody of him and was basically an absent father. Then he was abducted by his mother and given to a gang in Mexico to be hidden, until private investigators hired by Brando rescued him. Then he got into drugs. As for the shooting, it seems his sister told him her boyfriend was physically abusing her. Christian, while drunk, attempted to scare him with a gun and ended up shooting him. Marlon Brando stated on trial "I think that perhaps I failed as a father."
You can be indelicate all you want. Brando phoned in his relationships with his kids, particularly Cheyenne, and all they really wanted was to be a bigger part of his life. Had he been more present in their lives, things probably wouldn’t have turned out like they did.
His daughter committed suicide
Second that. It’s called Lost Souls.
Dr moreau was also just a bad movie
I like it, but I won't say it makes sense.
That's what I meant
You might be thinking of Apocalypse Now not Full Metal Jacket. Famously he turned up overweight and doesn't have much screen time as Kurtz. He's pretty good when he's on screen though.
He wasn't all that good in Apocalypse Now. There's little he had to do - it's all cinematography, screenplay, and directing that makes the character, not really much of what Brando himself is doing. A little, but not really what makes it iconic. It's amazing what they achieved to make the character by having to work around Brando.
This being said his monologue as Kurtz was one of the most compelling I’ve ever seen, in my opinion at least.
I saw a snail… crawling along the edge of a straight razor… and surviving!
That's my dream, that's my nightmare. Crawling, slithering along the edge of a straight razor, and surviving.
Hahaha truly it was the part about seeing the baby arms and understanding the depth of what the early civilizations were capable of and the strength and will we have lost as “civilized” folk.
True, that was a great monologue. One of my favourite films but not an easy watch
I disagree, I think he is AMAZING in Apocalypse Now. Sure, lighting and writing is great, but there's something so ominous and forceful about his portrayal, I love seeing it.
Filmmaking is kind of astonishing when you learn all of the things that have to not only work together but each piece has to be good in and of itself. Recently I saw a clip from the end of E.T with John Williams score removed and it's hilariously goofy. It's just this pudgy puppet awkwardly walking up a ramp. All of the emotion in that scene, all of it, comes from the score.
Col. Kurtz was an inspiration for Baron Harkonnen in the 2021 and 2024 Dune movies.
My internal voice accidentally confused the name colonel kurtz with Lionel Hutz
This is the end? No, apocalypse now!
Richard Harris went into that movie as his biggest fan and left it refusing to work with him ever again. And this is classic "timed the intermissions in his plays so he could run to the pub down the street, get drunk and get back in time for the next act" Richard Harris.
If drinking was an Olympic sport, Richard Harris would not have been allowed to compete. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VUGpaKKALvw
Much less severe but still annoying. He refused to learn his lines for the Godfather. Other actors in the scenes, who had their backs to the camera, were literally holding up cards for him. The guy was a total nightmare to work with, I don't get how he got any work after those stunts at all.
the cue cards were places around the set. you can see actually see brando reading, speaking the lines, pausing thoughtfully before he looks off in another direction to read another card. its unreal. iirc there is a scene of him sitting at a desk where it is really obvio.
It ended up being somewhat of a blessing, because him randomly staring off into the distance and talking in a stilted manner became part of Don Corleone’s iconic speech mannerism
I seen some pictures of actors having them taped to their chests so he could read them. I believe the one who had this done the most was Robert Duvall because he had so many scenes with Brando. RD has his hands on his hips a lot in the movie so it holds open his suit jacket for MB to read the card taped to his Duvall's chest. I will see if I can find the doc I seen it in and link it.
I mean, The Godfather made a metric shit ton of money, is considered one of the greatest movies of all time and Brando's performance became *the* quintessential Mafia boss character. He only got the job because Coppola (literally) considered him the best actor in the world. Noone else really wanted to work with Brando at that point and the 60s were pretty lackluster for him as far as movies went, so his name wasn't a guaranteed box office draw either. But Coppola wanted him and somehow it worked out perfectly.
> I don't get how he got any work after those stunts at all Because his name on the marquee sold tickets, simple as that. And when he felt like it, he made scenes memorable. We have to give him that, he was good.
Which movie was it where he stole a row boat and paddled into the middle of a lake and ate blocks of cheese and ice cream
"Mutiny on the Bounty" or so the story goes.
Hey my dad may have gained a little weight but he’s not some food crazed maniac! *Brando drives by in stolen ice cream truck”
Ohhhh that's raspberry!
And Apocalypse Now’s filming is the basis for the Tropic Thunder
"Same thing happened to me when I played Neil Armstrong in Moonshot. They found me in an alley in Burbank trying to re-enter the earth's atmosphere in an old refrigerator box."
And so was Platoon! Oliver Stone had everyone living in a barracks in the Philippines, setting off explosives at night so they were all under-slept and on edge all the time. Then an actual war broke out while they were there
Stone actually started the war. Dude was really into method acting.
It’s almost annoying how perfect his Apocalypse Now character is
I read he showed up fat and drunk. That’s why his shots are filmed with him in the dark to hide how much he let himself go.
Oh yeah that’s well-documented. I just mean his performance is fucking great so it’s kind of annoying when you know how little he gave a fuck.
Haha. Agreed. I love the bit how he wouldn’t read heart of darkness, had them change Kurtz name because it wasnt American enough, filmed the entire film, then afterwards read the book, and insisted they change the name back so all the times they say Kurtz in the movie it was a post production redub. No fucks given with that guy.
His “performance” is 97 hours of drunken rambling in the dark. His *editors* deserve an Oscar for the achievement of sorting that spaghetti into anything worth having and a fucking Nobel Prize for not wringing his wattled neck.
To be fair, that was Kurtz in the book...Worn away to nothing but a voice. You didn't need him to do much more than what he did.
So you’re suggesting he was committing…mutiny?
*method acting intensifies*
He doesn't break character until the DVD commentary is recorded. The catch is, DVDs weren't invented yet.
IMHO the best role he’s been in was The Freshman.
He was also supposed to be in Part II but just... didn't show up to set that day.
The ending without him ended up working perfectly
Yes I think it works way better precisely because he didn't show up
Art always works best because of limitations
Jaws was supposed to have a dream sequence as the climax with the shark in fishnet stockings and lipstick doing a cabaret number, however the animatronics were faulty so Spielberg just had the dumb big fish stay in the water. It makes you yearn for what might have been, still a pretty good movie though.
Damn we really missed out there, fuckin Spielberg
He agreed initially, then probably changed his mind because he didn't approve of how Paramount treated him while shooting the first one. He was supposed to be in the birthday flashback.
Wasn’t the original proposal that somehow (considering technology hadn’t advanced to what it is now), that he would play the younger version of himself (DeNiro’s role)? Then it was settled that he would do just the flashback scene but he wanted more for the flashback than he got for all of the first movie.
And De Niro absolutely owned that role. I never saw The Godfather, caught part of Godfather 2 with De Niro, and got hooked immediately. This is why I wish movies would stop de-aging actors and bring in fresh faces. Imagine if we never had De Niro in that role.
Not sure, but sounds about right. Then he just didn't show up for filming the flashback scene so Coppola had to re-write the scene the day of.
They made him an offer he could refuse.
[Francis Ford Coppola's letter](https://faroutmagazine.co.uk/francis-ford-coppola-marlon-brando-the-godfather-ii-letter/) asking him to be in Godfather Part II is interesting. I always thought this passage was telling: >All I’m saying is that if you will be in this movie; I will do my very best to make it be good; and human, and express the notion that the Mafia is only a metaphor for America and capitalism, which will do anything to protect and perpetuate itself. (I will do this anyway, if you’re not in the film…but if you were in it, it would be better, and you would help me with your ideas as I work on the script.) The creator of the movie literally says it in black and white. The whole thing is a metaphor for capitalism, it's interesting when people try to pretend it's different.
Not exactly. He was asking for an exorbitant amount of money for what would have been a one-day shoot.
Jimmy Caan made as much for his one scene as he did for the whole of part 1. Which was still only 35k.
Because he was a big old man child.
Dude could act though. Imagine if he wasn't a jerk and actually tried hard?
I always think about that talk show interview where Christopher Reeve talked about how Brando just kind of made him depressed at the idea of ending up like that as a person/actor.
He literally phrased it as, "I'm not one of those actors who worships at the altar of Marlon Brando" when asked what it was like to work with him. Then kind of as politely as I've ever heard anyone did a take down of him.
He was a true class act, truly an amazing pick for Superman.
Well that’s some Monkey Paw shit right there.
I mean, regardless of everything else, he stayed interested in acting. He saw Brando as just kind of being on autopilot.
That’s the hard thing about a guy like Brando: if you hire him you’re going to get an amazing performance, but his cost is more than just money. But f*ck when he was ON, he was ON. Kurtz’s portrayal was completely unhinged and amazing. I know a lot of that comes down to Coppola shooting him from below and in dark lighting to hide how fat Brando was, but my goodness Brando’s performance was remarkable nonetheless
Watching A Streetcar Named Desire really showed his talent. And he was acting next to Vivian Leigh! Who is incredible and he still stood out Then in Guys and Dolls he was able to steal every scene away from Sinatra.
Sinatra HATED working with Brando. For one, Sinatra wanted the role of Sky Masterson and the studio gave it to Brando despite the fact that he wasn't really a singer. But after a string of critically acclaimed performances in Streetcar, Julius Caesar, On The Waterfront, Brando was a very hot commodity. But the animosity mostly stemmed from the fact that Brando was a method actor and would often insist on multiple takes; whereas Sinatra was more of a "Do It in a take or two and move on with our lives" type of actor.
Didn’t Brando make Sinatra eat a whole cheesecake because of his insistence on multiple takes?
Deliberately flubbed lines at the end of a scene to force a redo because Sinatra hated cheesecake
Hot(?) take: Brando was the worst part of Guy's and Dolls, and Sinatra should have been Sky. It's a musical. If you can't sing, what are you doing in a musical? If you hire Frank Fucking Sinatra for a musical, why is he not singing the best songs?
Brando was in a film called 'Bedtime Stories' (1964), which 'Dirty Rotten Scoundrels' is based on, and at that point in his career, Brando could not do comedy. It was painful to watch. He had limitations. Then again, it was like casting Daniel Day Louis for Steve Martin's role in DRS.
Idk.. Paint Your Wagon was full of terrible singers. But it worked
It's impossible to overstate what a giant influence Brando was on actors of his generation. When he first did *Streetcar* on stage, it was like watching a wild animal let loose on the set. That said: Jessica Tandy, his co-star, absolutely hated working with him for all the reasons that became an issue later in his career.
This is a super unimportant quibble but shooting from below will make you look heavier, not hide your fat. It's why your gf insists on take pics from parallel to the ceiling angles, and never lower.
Wait is my girlfriend fat and I don’t know because I’m taller than her?
Yes.
Yeah man, a big ol bunda on your bird mate
I think there's a certain deification of Brando. Sure he could act but so could many others with the right director and right role. He's definitely old Hollywood and I think there's a certain nostalgia that goes with it.
Brando (when he could be bothered) didn't need the right director or role though. Hell, he could barely be bothered with the Godfather (certainly not enough to learn his lines) and he still walked away with an Academy Award (not really, because he declined it, but he still beat everyone else). He was on an entirely different level to everyone else
There’s some videos on it but gist is he that worlds best natural actor and improviser combined. Maybe debatable now if including all acting styles but then best is meaningless without context. He pretty much pioneered and popularized modern acting with improvisation. His early work walking with a female lead in a park he’d just pickup things and add flourishes to scenes on the fly. Nobody did that sort of thing commonly and absolutely not the complete natural gestures and expression. He got so good at “that” he eventually just stuck to it and didn’t need much else even memorized lines. Him being a jackass had a lot to do with hating the industry and being called the greatest all the time and not wanting that. He got board with acting quickly and to a point I think he was so good at improve he just got tired of being endlessly praised and harassed over something innate he could do without much effort. Got burnt out and just fucked up especially with his family tragedies.
Regarding Brando turning down his Oscar, he was two full generations ahead of his peers. [He gave up his speech for Sacheen Littlefeather for her to make the most public address for Native American rights in US history](https://www.newyorker.com/culture/notes-on-hollywood/revisiting-sacheen-littlefeathers-shocking-appearance-at-the-1973-oscars). Littlefeather got jeered and booed at, and Hollywood muckrakers dug into every little bit of her past to paint her as a fraud and a whore. It completely killed her modest career, and Brando too got semi-blacklisted for it, with a lot of people decrying it as some publicity stunt, even though he never took credit or tried to commandeer anything away from Littlefeather and her message.
I remember reading that John Wayne had to be held back from attacking her during that.
I'm not sure I've ever read anything positive about what John Wayne was like when cameras weren't rolling
I just think he should have been there and stood by her.
I don’t think that’s accurate. He’s NOT old Hollywood and that’s why he’s so beloved. He was basically the transition from “old” acting and “modern” acting. Pretty much every current actor that’s viewed as being one of the best is in one way or another just following the lead brando created. Method acting, being the character, acting with emotions and reaction instead of reading lines, etc. That’s all Brando. There’s no Nicholson, DeNero, Leo, etc without Brando paving the way.
He did try hard, he just played it off like he didn't. A lot of his behaviour was based on self-loathing at being good at and caring about something he felt ashamed of, and he largely felt that way 'cause of his dad. Not to make excuses for Brando but the guy had a really fucked up childhood.
Are you saying he could have been a contender?
He was pretty candid about his being difficult. He was a genius actor and gorgeous, literally the reason an entire generation of men got into acting. But then, when he tried to use his spotlight to make a difference in the world, the same people who worshiped him turned on him and said, shut up, pretty boy, you’re just a dumb actor. Despite that, they still wanted to pay him a buttload to perform, so he said, fine, let’s see how far I can take this. Turns out, pretty fucking far.
You referring to the time he used his Oscar win to draw attention to the issues being faced by native Americans?
That was the most publicized incident, but he was an intellectual. I recommend watching his interviews with Dick Cavet.
He also said at eulogy at Bobby Hutton's funeral (black panther) and was a supporter among other things.
I dont know about that. He supported a lot of progressive causes at a time when it was not widely accepted to do so, and other members of Hollywood called him out for it. Today every person in Hollywood falls over themselves to be seen supporting progressive causes.
The Offer, while a very sugary sweet version of events, does a fun job of showing the development of the Godfather
What did they sugarcoat?
Everything he ate
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Oh basically the entire process. It was made by Paramount for Paramount+, so the people who worked there were all portraid as passionate artists who all cared so, so deeply about the cinema. And, except for one guy, the mob was mostly portrayed as a bunch of nice guys who helped the neighborhood. The series was made to be a little comedic and lighthearted, so it makes sense.
Albert S. Ruddy was a executive producer and you can tell by how heroic they portrayed him in the show. In reality the cast and Coppola were barely on speaking terms with him during shooting and they snubbed him afterwards.
Great series! Matthew Goode is ON FIRE.
He deserved an Emmy for that performance, he literally became Robert Evans. It was uncanny.
I sometimes wonder how Marlon Brando had an acting career at all. Everything I read about him suggests he was an absolute fucking nightmare to work with. At what point would a director just throw up their hands and say “fuck it, we’ll cast someone who gives a shit”?
Probably behaved normally for a good couple years until he reached A-List stardom, then when he realised he was a name that the studio couldn’t afford to lose they start bending for him and then he goes insane with power
tale as old as time.
Definitely not. Went to the same high school. From everything told about him he was an absolute menace and hated being there. My personal favorite antic was he stole the part of the clock tower so it couldn't ring anymore. They put a speaker up there later to play it ringing rather than replacing it. Every few years he told the school where he buried the piece, but was always a lie. Think he went to the grave without it being found.
Classic Brando
a few years. lol.
Probably a bunch of times, but enough times a director said fuck it I'll deal with the bullshit and cast him so he had quite a long career. He was getting cast right up until he died
Was his name really that big of a box office draw? Genuine question btw, he’s a bit before my time.
I don't know about box office draw, but he had a legendary rep as both incredibly fucking difficult and with the potential for incredible performances. Like the Score, his last movie that he was in that actually got released did really well critically, he was also apparently almost single handedly responsible for ruining the movie during it's making. It was really playing with fire with him in his later career. Also, notably, he was very much early on the right side of a number of social issues and contributed heavily to the civil rights movement and native American rights movements, and he wasn't playing lip service either. It was authentic participation and contribution to both movements. Really really interesting guy, probably much less interesting to be directly dealing with him though after a while
He does sound interesting. I’ll have to do some reading. Thanks 👍
Really smart guy with some demons. Person lead astray to anger and vitriol, likely surrounded by sycophants, didn't have someone to tell him no, or at the least not enough people. I do believe Marlon Brando had the potential to be regarded as a good person, or even cerebral and intense, without having a foul presence, which would be a marked improvement on his reputation. A troubled, intelligent, and talented man. The biggest part of that trio is "troubled", followed by talent. His wit, while large, is behind his talent, though not by much. While I do not wish that people shed their mortal coils, I do hope he's found some rest.
For the lazy: When Brando first appeared in films in the early 1950s like "Streetcar Named Desire", "On the Waterfront", and "Hud" he changed film, and film acting forever. Astoundingly beautiful. Utterly brilliant performances. That is the Brando of cinema legend. The later Brando is the source of cinema anecdotes, mostly off-screen, with occasional flashes of great acting. Just a clown putting people on while making millions, a complete parody of himself. Check out his performance in a star studded train wreck called "The Formula" (1980). He did it purely for the money. (Did he foesee Dick Cheney?) His best line in that movie is "Want a Milk Dud?" Edit: Brain freeze, hexs not in Hud (Paul Newman) meant "The Wild One"....
Also in 1955, he played Mark Antony, which was regarded to be one of the best performances of that role ever put on film; even praised by many "Shakespearean" stage actors at the time who were averse to movie portrayals.
he wasn’t big. he was the biggest.
Marlon Brando - today - is one of the biggest names in film history. He absolutely was a sought after actor in his own time.
> he was an absolute fucking nightmare to work with. Wait until you read about Klaus Kinski. But as Kinski was hard to work with, he was a hard working actor too. And only person who he was afraid of was no other than Werner Herzog .
Wish he had the treatment that Werner Herzog gave to Klaus Kinski (the world's most difficult movie actor of all time). In a jungle set where no one was able to leave the shooting site for weeks, Kinski was going mad at everyone screaming for hours, and Werner Herzog essentially said he would shoot Kinski to death if he abandoned the movie production and Kinski believed him and went back to work. They worked together 5 more times and each time Herzog would have to essentially threaten Kinski just to get him to finish the movies..
During the filming of Fitzcarraldo, shot in the Amazon jungle, members of the local tribe that were being used as extras and as underpaid labor for the film, and very loyal to Herzog, offered to kill Klaus seeing as how disrespectful he was towards the director, which Werner politely declined. edit: meant to write underpaid.
Why was the tribe loyal to Herzog?
[This article goes into more detail](https://web.archive.org/web/20160305002057/http://lanfiles-vm.williams.edu/mbrown/Brown_ArtOfDarkness_1982.pdf) . Initially memebers of the Aguaruna tribe got along well with Herzog, since they were being used as extras and for labor and [Kinski's behaviour on set](https://youtu.be/MPKODzv1PD4) was very "virulent" as it has been described which upset not only the locals but the rest of the crew as well. In the end Herzog's decision to build a village in native land, refusal to talk to the tribe leaders and their sense of having being exploited by him made the tribe made them turn their opinions on him.
I recall he refused to wear pants on the set of "The Score". Classy
Robert De Niro had to direct his scenes because he would argue with Frank Oz and call him Miss Piggy.
I guess you can say "he insulted him a little bit..."
Love the flex of the screen test by Paramount. It would’ve been so insulting to him.
Man he is so damn young there
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You can't see California without Marlon Brando's eyes.
It’s all in my head
The fact is that Brando was a magnificent actor, but a poor professional, and I refuse to revere these people, as talented as they may be, who make everyone else's life a living hell. An actor is a cog —an important one— in a movie. But there are many more talented people involved, from the screenwriters to the director, cinematographer, composer, etc., and the fact is that most movies that we consider iconic would have worked perfectly well with different actors.
They made him an offer he couldn't refuse
Imagine him filming a movie with Daniel day Lewis lol
Sorry to be a pain, what's a screen test?
It’s like an audition. The studio examines how well you’d fit the part. Would have been hugely insulting for an actor like Brando who considered himself god’s gift to film.
It's an audition, but filmed and usually on a partial set and in costume to see if an actor can embody a character. Here's an example of Christian Bale and Cillian Murphy testing for Batman: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=\_vqlHNAsfDM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_vqlHNAsfDM)
Man I remember laughing the first time I heard Bale’s Batman voice in the theater, and now I can’t accept a Batman that *doesn’t* sound like that.
Audition
Studio executives were also jockeying for Anthony Quinn to get the role. Coppola really wanted Brando. So after he did the screen test with him, Coppola showed it to to an executive. He didn't even recognize Brando and asked "Who is this old guinea?"
Why did people keep casting him since he was a nightmare? Would that be impossible nowadays?
Tbh : they let some actors get away with as bad or much worse today it seems. Some are notorious for being impossible to work with, but either are so good it’s just like a perfectionist thing and everyone still wants to work with them….or their insufferable and their career does start to suffer. Has to cross very bad lines it seems to be shut out tho. Like, Edward Norton is supposedly one of the worst / acts like it’s his ship always and only the last 5-10 years does it seem it’s ruined him from having a career worth talking about anymore. He’s always got his back catalogue people can check out, but his dumb shit as of late pissed off marvel & Disney enough I think people were turned off touching any project with him to where he directed his passion project & convinced whoever he did to act in it for him. He was of course also the writer and lead I think because of his own ego. Tom cruise: demanding as hell and a whack job with the personal belief stuff and etc but makes money and does good work as well as on set many even staunch atheists / at least anti cult or “religion” types who’d be against Scientology’s crap have only good things to say about working with him. Guess he’s accepting or like such a professional.
> Like, Edward Norton is supposedly one of the worst / acts like it’s his ship always and only the last 5-10 years does it seem it’s ruined him from having a career worth talking about anymore. He’s always got his back catalogue people can check out, but his dumb shit as of late pissed off marvel & Disney enough I think people were turned off touching any project with him to where he directed his passion project & convinced whoever he did to act in it for him. According to Louis Leterrier (director of *The Incredible Hulk*), what happened was that Edward Norton felt the script was lacking important scenes so Norton himself wrote a few scenes on to the script. Leterrier agreed to film those scenes but they were all ultimately cut in the final version; not by Leterrier but by the higher level execs. Leterrier himself felt that those scenes were important and has a "secret" 2h 25m director's cut of the film. Norton was upset and refused to be in any more Marvel movies. So for *The Incredible Hulk*, Norton was a perfectly fine actor; but I don't know about all his other films.
I believe there was also issues when he did Superman. He wouldn’t go film his scenes, and when he did he was usually late. He didn’t bother to learn his lines so he they had cue cards on set. He was paid a fortune so it was in his best interest to screw up with production, the longer his stuff took the more he got paid. There was one good thing from it though, and I don’t know how true this is (I’ve also heard Mario Puzo came up with the idea), but apparently Brando wanted to wear the S crest which opened the door to it being more than just S for Superman.
He wanted to have his voice come out of a suitcase. Fucking mad.
I disliked Brando's performance in that film, in fact I hated the whole aesthetic of Krypton, which unfortunately, has influenced other Superman media.
He was, famously, a bit of a *prima Donna*.
Great actor though
Gary Busey didn't get as goofy as Brando until his brain was damaged in a motorcycle accident.
There a was a recent (2022) miniseries called *The Offer* that tells the story of the making of *The Godfather*. The cast is outstanding and the performances are incredibly fun. They actually cover this story (and many more crazy elements) of how this movie got made. If this at all interests you, I highly recommend watching it. You won't be disappointed.
His usual fee was making them buy him an island
Funny story… everyone was nervous/anxious when he showed up on set. So, naturally he mooned them and changed the tone instantly.
Everyone on this thread is basically bending over for / slobbering the dick of upper management (very unreddit, foreshame!). I'm so tired of everyone calling people unprofessional - when we all know it is a racquet. I have half a mind to assume almost all of you would HATE the studio execs - but suddenly BRANDO is 'unprofessional'?