Movie mogul Francis Ford Coppola has opened up about working with Marlon Brando on Apocalypse Now, revealing the acting legend was a big challenge.
Speaking as part of the 40th anniversary of the classic war movie at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York over the weekend, the filmmaker went into detail about the time he spent with Brando, who he agreed to pay $1 million (£780,000)-a-week for his 21-day stint on set, and confessed he still had a great time with him, even though he was pulling his hair out.
"I read things of me saying I didn't like Brando," the director said. "Brando was a wonderful man. I've met extraordinary people but Brando was in a class of his own and not just his acting. What he talked about was so fascinating. His perspective on life was interesting. But he was like a big kid and sometimes a big kid is casual with friendship or doesn't do what they said they would.
"So, when he promised that he would lose weight - mainly because he was gonna play a Green Beret... but he arrived very overweight, like an irresponsible kid.
"I had him for three weeks for $1 million a week and we talked all day on the houseboat... For five days he just talked about termites and shortwave radio and the Chinese immigrants on the beach. It was fascinating stuff but he was assuming that I was gonna go over five weeks and owe him (another) $2 million.
"After the fifth day, we hadn't shot anything and I only had two weeks left with him."
Coppola recalls Brando challenged the filmmaker on the look of his character, Colonel Kurtz, and initially refused to shave his head for the role.
"I directed the picture more from the paperback Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad, where the character had a bald head," the filmmaker recalled. "He said to me very casually, 'I looked at that, and that won't work'. Then I said, 'What if he's gotten big and he's a man that went with his senses and he's voluptuous', and he said, 'No, no, no'. Then I realised when people have gotten fat, even Marlon Brando, they are embarrassed about it. I couldn't be angry because Marlon was too interesting a man to be angry at.
"Finally, on the last day, his head is totally bald. I said, 'Marlon what happened? You said you read Heart of Darkness and it wouldn't work'. He said, 'I lied. I read it last night'."
The director also used a little movie magic to make Brando look more commanding and less fat in the film, adding, "Marlon is not tall but he's got big shoulders, so when I showed him in full figure I used this 6ft 4ins river boat captain, so Marlon would come across more as a giant than a fat person. Let's face it movies are an illusion and that worked for us."
