The cast of Francis Ford Coppola’sGodfathertrilogy includes several of Hollywood’s acting giants, some of whom went on to work for the director in other movies. They were a tight-knit bunch of actors, who enjoyed working together, and were more than happy to reunite with Coppola for the 45th anniversary of the originalGodfathermovie. Yet it wasn’t just professional actors who starred in the famous trilogy before going on to become regular cast members for Coppola. The director also convinced several family members without any acting expertise to appear inThe Godfatherand its sequels.
Robert Evans, an executive producer at the film studio Paramount Pictures, wanted as many Italian-Americans cast inThe Godfatheras possible. He didn’t entirely get his way, as Francis Ford Coppola insisted on casting actors without Italian heritage, such as James Caan and Robert Duvall, whom he’d worked with before, and Marlon Brando, who was his first choice to play Vito Corleone. However, Coppola was able to use his personal connections to New York’s Italian-American community to match the heritage ofGodfathercastmembers with their fictional counterparts, and some of them would reappear in the director’s later work.
1Marlon Brando
Apocalypse Now (1979)
Marlon Brando is probably the most famous of all Francis Ford Coppola’s acting collaboratorsduring his seven decades in Hollywood. Brando was also Coppola’s most controversial casting decision forThe Godfather, but the acting great’s portrayal of Vito Corleone proved to be a master stroke that helped to cement Coppola’s status as one of cinema’s top directors.
Paramount Pictures fought to keep Marlon Brando from being cast as Vito Corleone, but Francis Ford Coppola andThe Godfather’s original author Mario Puzo insisted on casting the actor.
When the director then began the pre-production process for his Vietnam War epicApocalypse Now, he decided thathe wanted Brando to play the enigmatic Colonel Kurtz. Coppola offered Brando the enormous sum of $2 million and 10% gross takings to appear inApocalypse Now, despite the actor’s role being relatively minor in terms of actual screen-time and dialogue. Nevertheless, his performance quickly became one of modern cinema’s most iconic, with his legendary final line, “The horror, the horror,” now etched into film history.
2Robert Duvall
The Rain People (1969) & Apocalypse Now (1979)
Francis Ford Coppola was already familiar with Robert Duvall’s acting when he cast him as Corleone consigliere Tom Hagen inThe Godfather.Duvall had played the violently disturbed villain of Coppola’s 1969 road movieThe Rain People, after replacing Rip Torn midway through production. He got the part via his roommate and co-star in the film, James Caan, who would also go on to star inThe GodfatherandThe Godfather Part IIalongside Duvall.
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Funnily enough,even after acting in theGodfathermovies Duvallwas only the second choice for his final collaboration with Coppola, too. His role as ruthlessUS army officer Lieutenant Colonel William “Bill” Kilgore inApocalypse Nowwas initially meant to go to Gene Hackman. Yet now it’s difficult to imagine anyone but Duvall declaring without a hint of irony, “I love the smell of Napalm in the morning.” He made Kilgore the sinister character he was, providing the movie with its only outright villain.
3Sofia Coppola
The Outsiders (1983), Rumble Fish (1983), Peggy Sue Got Married (1986) & Tucker: The Man and His Dream (1988)
The most famous child of her father Francis,Sofia Coppola has gone on to direct moviesin her own right as a successful and celebrated filmmaker. Decades before her award-winning moviesLost in TranslationandMarie Antoinette, however, Coppola played minor or non-speaking roles in several of her father’s big-screen features. These roles began with her appearance as Michael Rizzi, the second baby of Connie Corleone and Carlo Rizzi, inThe Godfather.
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She then served as an extra inThe Godfather Part II, and went onto appear in four more Francis Ford Coppola moviesbefore landing her first major part. As it happened, she also got that part thanks to her father, who cast her as Michael Corleone’s adult daughter Maria in 1990’sThe Godfather Part III. In the end, acting wasn’t for her. Sofia Coppola made her directorial debut withThe Virgin Suicidesin 1999, and hasn’t looked back since.
4James Caan
The Rain People (1969) & Gardens of Stone (1987)
James Caan is the first Francis Ford Coppola collaborator on this list in chronological terms, sincehe was cast inThe Rain Peoplebefore Robert Duvall. In the movie, Caan plays Jimmy “Killer” Kilgannon, a former college football player who stopped playing when he suffered brain trauma from a head injury. Caan was considerably younger than Duvall, but had already developed a reputation as a lead actor before Coppola cast him inThe Rain People.
James Caan’s first major film role was playing Alan Bourdillion “Mississippi” Traherne alongside John Wayne and Robert Mitchum in the 1966 Howard Hawks Western movie,El Dorado.
15 years afterThe Godfather, Caan reunited with the director to play army veteran Sergeant Clell Hazard inGardens of Stone. The movie isn’t among Coppola’s career highlights, but it features a stellar cast, including Angelica Huston and James Earl Jones as well as Caan.
5Talia Shire
New York Stories (1989) & Megalopolis (2024)
Talia Shire (née Coppola) is the younger sister of Francis Ford Coppola, and so was an automatic choice to play the role of Connie Corleone in hisGodfathertrilogy. Shire was already an established actor before being cast in her brother’s movie, and would go on to even greater prominence later in the 1970s when she playedRocky Balboa’s wife Adrianna “Adrian” Penninoin Sylvester Stallone’sRockyfranchise.
Shire didn’t collaborate with Coppola on one of his feature films, aside from the third part of theGodfathertrilogy, until 2024’sMegalopolis.
After appearing inThe Godfather Part II, Shire went her own way, and didn’t collaborate with Coppola again on one of his feature films, aside from the third part of the trilogy, until 2024’sMegalopolis. In this movie,she plays the mother of Adam Driver’s protagonist Cesar Catilina, Constance. She did make a briefer appearance in Coppola’s segment for the 1989 anthology movieNew York Stories, though. Still, she’s one member of the Coppola family who can claim to have had her own film career without the involvement of her brother.
6John Cazale
The Conversation (1974)
One of the most talented but unsung members ofThe Godfather’s cast, John Cazale was the only actor from the film who went on to star in Francis Ford Coppola’s 1974 Palme D’Or-winning masterpieceThe Conversation. Cazale’s portrayal of Fredo Corleone is arguably the most heart-rending aspect of the first twoGodfathermovies. The actor imbues his character with such pathos that it’s hard not to be deeply disturbed byFredo’s death on the orders of his brother Michael Corleone inThe Godfather Part II. Cazale’s performance is integral to illustrating Michael’s descent into heartless megalomania.
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On the other hand, Cazale’s role as a surveillance assistant to Harry Caul inThe Conversationis committed and convincing, but relatively minimal. Themovie is ultimately all about one of Gene Hackman’s best-remembered performancesin his role as Caul. After his part inThe Godfather Part II, Cazale wouldn’t live to see the release of another Francis Ford Coppola film. He died of lung cancer in 1978, at the age of just 42.
7Italia Coppola
One From The Heart (1981)
Coppola’s mother Italia was an extra in all three of her son’sGodfathermovies. She andher husband Carmine, a professional composer who won an Oscarfor his scoring ofThe Godfather Part II, also appear briefly as extras in an elevator during Francis Ford Coppola’s 1981 romantic musicalOne from the Heart.
Aside from these brief cameos, Italia Coppola didn’t contribute to her son’s movies. She passed away in 2004, at 91 years of age.
8Francesca De Sapio
Tetro (2009)
Francesca De Sapio is the only Italian actor to have appeared in one of Francis Ford Coppola’s other movies, as well as theGodfathertrilogy. She played theyounger version of Vito Corleone’s wife alongside Robert De Niro inThe Godfather Part II, before featuring in Coppola’s 2009 drama movieTetroin 2009, as the minor character Amalia.
Apart from her own acting, De Sapio has been a coach at the Actors Studio since the 1980s. She founded her own acting school, the Duce Studio, in 1985.
9Harry Dean Stanton
Harry Dean Stanton is one of the most celebrated actors to have starred in any movie of theGodfathertrilogy, but it’s very difficult to tell where in the movies he actually appears. In fact,Stanton features briefly as an unnamed FBI agent duringThe Godfather Part II. He also has an uncredited role in a scene that was cut from Francis Ford Coppola’sApocalypse Now.
Harry Dean Stanton’s performance inApocalypse Nowcan be seen in the 2001Reduxversion of the movie.
However, the only other Coppola movie that Stanton actually ended up appearing in wasOne from the Heart. In this movie,the actor plays Moe, the best friend of Frederic Forrest’s protagonist Hank, and the husband of the woman with whom Hank has an affair.
10G.D. Spradlin
G.D. Spradlin is another actor who only had bit-part roles in Francis Ford Coppola’s movies. InThe Godfather Part II, he plays Senator Pat Geary during the congressional hearings to indict the Corleone family of racketeering.
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Spradlin’s second Coppola film role was his appearance asGeneral Corman in the opening scenes ofApocalypse Now. The actor’s voice and oratorical ability often led him to be cast as figures of authority, like he was both times that Coppola featured him in one of his movies.
