I read somewhere in the Internet that the producers originally wanted Robert Redford to play Michael..... I cant'believe it! How could have he been a credible Italian (and a Sicilian!!!)?

moe green maybe , i cannot imagine him as michael

Lavinia, you surely know that Sicilian people have also Norman origins. That's why some Sicilians have blond hair...
But I agree with you, actually Robert Redford as Michael Corleone would have looked like more an Italian from Trentino Alto Adige, than a son of two Sicilians... For an American (and international) audience, in that case it would have been most difficult to imagine Michael as a Sicilian!

ps: hey, Lavinia, where do you come from?

of course I know it, but I still failed to meet a Sicilian who looks like Robert Redford....


Rome. Are there other Italians in the BB or are we the only ones?

i sort of think it would be scary to have robert redford as mike, i keep getting visions of him trying to run around with rope in his hand and a cowboy hat on, hoping that paul newman will come help him chase down sollozo.

When a great actor appears in a great film, he or she defines the role for all time in our minds. That's a fitting tribute to Pacino in this case, but it doesn't mean that someone else couldn't have been effective in the same role. Redford is a fine and versatile actor. If it were possible for us to erase our memories of Pacino as Michael, I think we might have found Redford an effective Michael.

I didn't mean Redford is not a good actor. On the contrary, I believe he is a very good one. But I think he's an excellent WASP good guy persona, if you know what I mean. And then Michael got to have those dark tragic eyes . The ones Alfred Pacino got. Or, in more recent years, Andy Garcia (one of my favorite actors) or Johnny Depp.

If anyone happens to see Robert Redford's performance in 'The Sting'...they can see that he definitely posessed the acting skills to portray Michael, at least in The Godfather. NOT as well as Pacino did, but he definitely could've carried it off.

Problem is there's no way that Redford would've fit the role in terms of appearance. They could've dyed his hair or tried anything they wanted, he just physically would not have fit in as one of the Corleone sons. The film might have been a failure based on this miscast alone!

Also, Redford could not have even come close to the coldhearted, chilling Michael that we had to see in GFII. In fact there probably would not have BEEN a GFII if Redford had been cast as Michael in the first one.

Apple

If Redford was Michael then maybe Max Von Sydow could have been Vito.

As Turnbull said, Al Pacino is etched in our mind. It is almost impossible to think of a different type of persona portraying our beloved characters. Redford would have been a stretch. Who knows what the results would have been.

Conversely, I couldn't see Al Pacino playing Jeremiah Johnson. Guiseppe Giannisoni maybe .