Re: Christopher Reeve on Working With Brando

On 2025-01-26 2:42 PM, BTR1701 wrote:

In 1982, Christopher Reeve spoke his mind about Marlon Brando in an interview
on the David Letterman Show.
 Reeve did not have fond memories of his collaboration with Brando on
SUPERMAN.
 "I don't mean to be mean when I say this but I admit that I'm not a Brando
fan. I don't grovel before him. He's someone who has given up. He no longer
plays the leadership role he once had. He could continue to work, to inspire
young actors, but that doesn't interest him anymore. For a long time, he was
praised to the skies. Whatever he did, he was considered great. He had become
an institution. And today, he's thrown in the towel and I find it sad that at
53, he doesn't give a damn anymore. That's something I would say to his face
if he were here. I was disappointed working with him. It wasn't stimulating.
He took his $2 million, and he botched his performance. He's an amazing actor
and a great guy, but right now he just doesn't have the motivation to work."
 While filming a sequence that was originally planned to be part of SUPERMAN
II, Reeve and Brando shared a scene in the Fortress of Solitude. The scene
didn't make it into the movie's final cut due to Brando's lawsuit against the
producers, which prohibited his footage from being used in the second SUPERMAN
film.
 Reeve had an awkward line of dialogue that he was having trouble articulating
and Brando was smirking disdainfully at him, so a frustrated Reeve turned
around and chewed out the older actor.
 Reeve threw some of Brando's past statements about acting being a
collaborative art into his face and said what a disappointment is was to learn
that an actor as universally revered as Marlon Brando was in truth more
interested in collecting a paycheck than helping a young actor having trouble
with a scene.
 After Reeve's tirade, Brando became a little more cooperative on the set but
clearly relations never really thawed between the two men.
 https://www.moveipastime.com
 

I remember all the hype about Brando back when he was young. I'd never really seen any of that magic in any of the later films, including Apocalypse Now, so I tracked down one of his most highly-regarded films, On the Waterfront. Honestly, I didn't see any magic in that film either.
Actors who worked with him on those early films and even the people who saw those films may have felt magic, I really can't say but Brando he doesn't do it for me.
--
Rhino