Intrigen, Lügen, Machtspiele, Verrat – irgendwas ist ja immer, wenn ein Film entsteht. Manchmal sind die Geschichten hinter den Kulissen spannender als das Drehbuch. Zum Beispiel die Entstehungsgeschichte des Paten, die man hier nachlesen kann. Schon die Beschreibung des Screentests, den Coppola mit Brando machte, ist faszinierend:
Brando emerged from his bedroom in a kimono, with his long blond hair in a ponytail. As Coppola watched through the camera lens, Brando began a startling transformation, which he had worked out earlier in front of a mirror. In Coppola’s words, “You see him roll up his hair in a bun and blacken it with shoe polish, talking all the time about what he’s doing. You see him rolling up Kleenex and stuffing it into his mouth. He’d decided that the Godfather had been shot in the throat at one time, so he starts to speak funny. Then he takes a jacket and rolls back the collar the way these Mafia guys do.” Brando explained, “It’s the face of a bulldog: mean-looking but warm underneath.”