Jack Nicholson has played enough iconic roles throughout his career. Someone as successful as him, who does not work to live but lives to work, has the freedom to pick and choose what projects they want to star in, regardless of how successful or unsuccessful they might be. This is perhaps why the actor has managed to star in as many classic films as he has. Despite this, it is surprising to find out that one of the most culturally significant film series, The Godfather, was almost led by him, having been asked to star in the role of Michael Corleone.
While he has spoken on why he did not do this, wanting an Italian character to be played by an Italian person, it would seem that there were other, much more selfish, reasons as to why he let this opportunity go. Not only did he think that other projects were better than this film, but he also did not like how much screen time his character was getting with Marlon Brando or the lack thereof.
Jack Nicholson Thought That Two Other Films Were Better Than The Godfather
Jack Nicholson gave an interview with BBC, where he was asked about almost starring in one of the biggest and most iconic film series of all time, The Godfather. He confessed that when he was asked to star in the role of Michael Corleone, he was well aware that the film was going to be massive.
The actor had a similar insight about another film he was asked to be a part of, The Sting, another cinema classic. However, Nicholson mentioned that he was not interested in working on projects like these at the time.
“I think I had enough business acumen, in fact, I know I had enough business acumen by then to know that both The Sting and The Godfather were going to be huge hits.” he went on, “At the same time, I happen to think that Last Detail and Chinatown are, to me, the more interesting of the four films.”
He instead decided to work on Last Detail and Chinatown. The Shining actor mentioned that he believed that these two films had the strongest scripts, and were a lot more interesting to him personally. Deciding to stick with what he believed in, Nicholson let go of two of the biggest films of the 1970s, with seemingly little to no regret.
Jack Nicholson Only Cared About Acting With Marlon Brando
This wasn’t the only reason that Jack Nicholson let go of The Godfather as he confessed to having two other motivations for the big decision. The first was that he did not want to play the role of an Italian character when he, himself, was American, believing an Italian actor would be better suited for the role.
The second had more to do with his love for actor Marlon Brando than the film itself. He mentioned that he did not like how his character did not have any screen time with Brando.
“The Godfather was going to be a good film, I had always wanted to work with Marlon [Brando], but I was asked to play the lead and a) I thought it should’ve been an Italian person and b) I didn’t have any scenes with Marlon in the script I read, and I thought well I am liable to only get to work with Marlon once and hope that it might be something when we got to work together.”
The actor elaborated on this, stating that he had always wanted to work with Brando and understood that he would only get one chance to do so. Nicholson did not want this one time to be in a film that the two do not even share the screen. This factor especially deterred him from the movie, deciding to let this opportunity go. The role went to Al Pacino instead, who became an icon and has gone down in history for his work as Michael Corleone.
