Al Pacino’s Audition Tape for The Godfather

A piece of Al Pacino’s audition tape for the role of Michael Corleone in The Godfather. 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. 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)