Nice to meet you.
It's it's great to see you on the red carpet this evening.
Why do you think The Godfather has survived so long?
It's lasted the test of time.
Oh, yeah.
Well, it's one of the great pictures of our industry
in the history of our industry, and
it will last forever.
More whenever movies are mentioned, because it has such great work.
And it's extraordinary work in this film.
And I know all the participants are most of them, and I admire all these actors.
They're all from my generation. And,
of course, the great Marlon Brando is the great Marlon
Brando that influenced my generation and all the people he's working with.
In this film.
And anyway, so I was
Al and I, Al Pacino and I were friends and
we knew each other.
I was going to do a movie called Deliverance,
and he was doing The Godfather at that time.
So we were and we were young actors excited to work, you know,
and to bring, you know, to work on the work
we were
in our own way, you know,
kind of perfectionist mentality is we really dig deep and never
and wake up in the middle of the night and write down a note and stuff like that.
But anyway, seeing this film,
yes, it is one of the great films
and the artistry in it See, I worked with Bobby Duvall.
I know what kind of a an artist he is.
I knew Jimmy Caan.
I knew and I said, as I say to knew Al,
I knew Richie Castellano, who plays Clemenza, another great
he's great who's
a great artist and a wild human being.
A very interesting guy.
Each one of these guys are really interesting human beings.
And they're all fun, too, by the way.
I mean, they're fun kind of their wildness
it has has to do with the genius of these people.
That's why they have all this energy
inside and of excitement about them.
And Marlon sits at the top of the world, we all went to school on Marlon Brando.
You know, I was so excited about him.
But anyway, so and this film has
you know, the great cinematography of Gordon Willis.
I don't think there's anything I've never seen anything better.
I've seen great cinematography, but never better than necessary
and magnificent and is daring to.
And that's what Francis [Ford Coppola] does.
Francis, he brings this.
He brings people in. He works with people.
He minds
the people that he works with, and it collaborates.
And it's like a family you know, it's almost like going,
we're going to have an Italian meal made by the director.
This is what it is, you know?
And anyway, so Francis, genius is everywhere in this piece.
And it's interesting you say that because I feel like Francis
is the godfather behind the creativity in the art,
and he's pulling all the strings behind to get everyone together and create this.
He is the godfather, but Francis is The Godfather.
But he's such a kindly, you know,
wonderfully youthful.
And I know I when I got to get excited, you know,
I didn't want
happy and were in the work, you know,
investing in the work and trying to expand lamentation is,
you know, something that he is one of his trademarks.
He just he he wants people to be alive
and so he's constantly creating when he's working.
It's wonderful, wonderful, constantly creating.
And it's still touching people in different generations today.
It's it's incredible.
Where were you 50 years ago when this came out?
Where was I? Yeah, I was in New York. Yeah,
I was I in New York.
I guess I was spending time out here in California, but I was a New York actor,
and I made Midnight Cowboy in New York.
And I and I worked with Bobby Duvall in New York on stage
so a couple of years later, this piece
came forth.
And when I saw it, I saw with the gal
that was going to be my wife, who I met on Deliverance.
And it was really something new.
I was so young, I was really excited about, you know, all of it
and excited for my my friend now what that meant to his career, you know?
Yeah. I mean, that was it.
You know, we couldn't be better
so thank you so much for chatting to us this evening.
Really appreciate your time. Pleasure. Thank you.