Marlon Brando on Acting

[rickmichaels]

I was skimming through YouTube and came across this interesting 1973 chat with Dick Cavett and Marlon Brando:

Marlon Brando explains his perspective on acting

[JoeProBono]

[ETL]

It's very simple...you tell the producer your guy gets the part.
If he says 'no way', you stick a horse's head in his friggin bed

[Larry Lucido]

I’m not an actor but I play one on TV.

[Yo-Yo]

Bananas...

[Borges]

He held the profession of acting in contempt. He loathed himself for having to do it.

[RIghtwardHo]

Fascinating.

[CaptainK]

My high school acting teacher had stacks of old Broadway magazines in her classroom. One day I was flipping through them when I came upon an early interview with Brando when he was doing the Broadway run of "A Streetcar Named Desire"

The one thing from the interview that sticks in my mind four decades later was his statement that his greatest fear was of growing fat.

[Dr. Thorne]

By the end of his career, Brando was so lazy that he refused to learn his lines for “Superman” and had to read them off cue cards.

[Lx]

By the end of his career, Brando was so lazy that he refused to learn his lines for “Superman” and had to read them off cue cards.

I thought he did that his whole career. "Method acting"

[Borges]

He did that in The Godfather as well.

[.45 Long Colt]

Brando was a terrific actor, but a lost and very debauched human being. What his generation of Hollywood stars did in the dark is now celebrated as normal. I hate that the Hollywood elite have such an outsized influence on our culture.

[CharlesOConnell]

In 1979 1st rate human being Cavett told Virgil Thomson on camera, “Of course you realize that you’re a third rate composer”.

[gaijin]

Later

[Sans-Culotte]

I think Brando was a great actor who turned in some incredible performances, but he always struck me as a pretentious dumbass.

[ImJustAnotherOkie]

For the most part actors are nut jobs craving attention. Easily manipulated people.

[JoeDetweiler]

“I think Brando was a great actor who turned in some incredible performances....”

I think of Brando the way I think of Johnny Depp. He’s gonna be WAY over the top every time. When it works, it works GREAT! But when it doesn’t work, he REALLY stinks!

[miss marmelstein]

Did you see that directly? Virgil Thompson was a fine composer. I find it hard to believe Cavett said that unless they were in a fight.

I wonder if this interview was the same week Brando punched out photographer Ron Galella - the tabs had a field day with that.

[nikos1121]

I don’t really think it matters if you memorize your lines or not in movies. Look at him in the movie with Johnny Depp, Don Juan Demarco. I doubt that he was reading lines from cue cards.

[LouAvul]