Al Pacino felt “relief” after severely twisting his ankle while filming “The Godfather.”
At the time, studio executives did not think Pacino was the right fit for the role of Michael Corleone. Pacino, who was 31 years old at the time, knew the “axe could fall” on him at any point.
For one scene, Pacino had to run and jump onto a moving car.
“I had no stand-in. I had no stuntman. I had to do it myself,” Pacino wrote in his memoir “Sonny Boy,” via The Guardian. “I jumped, and I missed the car. Now I was lying in a gutter on White Plains Road in the Bronx, flat on my back and looking up at the sky. I had twisted my ankle so badly that I couldn’t move.
Al Pacino wrote about the filming of “The Godfather” in his upcoming memoir, “Sonny Boy.” (Getty Images)
“Everyone on the crew had crowded around me. They were trying to lift me up, asking me: Was my ankle broken? Could I walk? I…