/ 18 October 2007

Godfather stars have lost fire, says director

Film director Francis Ford Coppola has attacked three of the biggest stars in Hollywood, denouncing them for being lazy and uninterested in taking risks.

Coppola told GQ magazine that Al Pacino and Robert De Niro — both in his Godfather trilogy — and Jack Nicholson had been spoilt by success and lost the fire that had made them raging bulls.

”I met both Pacino and De Niro when they were really on the come,” he said. ”They were young and insecure. Now Pacino is very rich, maybe because he never spends any money; he just puts it in his mattress. De Niro was deeply inspired by Zoetrope [Coppola’s studio] and created an empire and is wealthy and powerful. Nicholson was — when I met him and worked with him — he was always kind of a joker. He’s got a little bit of a mean streak. He’s intelligent, always wired in with the big guys and the big bosses of the studios. I don’t know what any of them want any more … Pacino always wanted to do theatre … [He] will say, ‘Oh, I was raised next to a furnace in New York, and I’m never going to go to LA,’ but they all live off the fat of the land.”

Coppola’s own career has been largely dormant since finishing the Godfather trilogy in 1990. He has a new film, Youth Without Youth, due out this year but has spent much of the intervening time concentrating on his California vineyard and a luxury resort he owns in Belize.

He said that the stars had been eclipsed by younger actors. ”A guy like [Spaniard] Javier Bardem is excited to do something good: ‘Let me do this’ or ‘I’ll put stuff in my mouth, change my appearance.’ I don’t feel that kind of passion to do a role and be great coming from those guys …

”I think if there was a role that De Niro was hungry for, he would come after it. I don’t think Jack would. Jack has money and influence and girls, and I think he’s a little bit like Brando, except Brando went through some tough times.” – Guardian Unlimited Â