Francis Ford Coppola Shares Original Footage of Al Pacino Auditioning For ‘The Godfather’

Legendary director Francis Ford Coppola shared classic footage of a young Al Pacino auditioning for his Oscar-nominated role of Michael Corleone in the 1972 film The Godfather. Coppola explained that Pacino was considered too short and too scruffy for the role.

The interesting thing here, was a reason given to me against casting Pacino was not only was he too short, but also too ‘scruffy’. So we got him a haircut and dressed him more non-scruffy and more collegiate, and then the criticism was he so cleaned up, he lost some of his natural appeal. I realized they just didn’t want Al no matter whether tall or short, scruffy or collegiate.

Coppola sent him for a haircut or two.

The first “too scruffy” haircut was given to him by my wife Ellie. For the second haircut, we went to a local barber and he found out it was for a “Godfather” actor, he had a heart-attack. (The barber really had a heart-attack and was taken off to hospital afterwards)