Al Pacino was relieved to get hurt on “The Godfather”: 'Thank you, God — you're gonna get me out of this film'

Pacino also recalls how he initially struggled on the iconic Francis Ford Coppola film and even received some pressure from the director.

When Al Pacino got hurt on the set of The Godfather, the actor thought the universe had handed him an offer he couldn't refuse: an excuse to leave the film.

In an exclusive preview clip from Monday's episode of the Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend podcast, Pacino recalls to O'Brien how he initially struggled on the iconic Francis Ford Coppola film and even received some pressure from the director and the studio for not quite living up to their expectations. So much so, that when he got injured while filming the famous restaurant scene, he actually hoped that it would mean he would be let go from working on the film once and for all.

In the scene in question, Michael (Pacino) takes a gun concealed in the bathroom of an Italian restaurant and kills his enemies, McCluskey (Sterling Hayden) and Sollozzo (Al Lettieri). "Well, you have to understand one thing, because after I shoot these two guys — who I really loved, by the way — I shoot them and I'm running out and I sort of drop the gun and I go into the street and jump in a moving car," Pacino explains to O'Brien of the scene, before joking that because "they didn't have a stuntman" for him on set, that "maybe they assumed that I would jump and get hurt, and I'd be outta the film."

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The Oscar winner says that he ultimately got injured when his foot slipped and he missed the car that he was supposed to jump into.

"My ankle was hurt, somehow it slipped," he says. "The car had one of those side things that you could jump on and then jump in. So I was just looking up at the sky and I said, 'Thank you, God.' This was my thought. I actually said, 'Thank you, God. You're gonna get me out of this film.' That's how much I wanted to leave it. I said, 'This is from heaven.'"

Pacino continued, "And people just swallowed, got around me and they said, 'He's hurt.''... And then they put one of these big fat needles in my ankle so I could finish the day, and they kept me."

The rest is, of course, film history. The Godfather, widely considered to be one of the best films ever made, was wildly successful at both the box office and with the Academy. The film was nominated for 10 awards and won 3: Best Picture, Best Actor (for Marlon Brando), and Best Adapted Screenplay. Pacino was also nominated for his role, despite Coppola once telling him he wasn't cutting it.

Related: Francis Ford Coppola tells Diane Keaton 'why on Earth' he cast her in The Godfather

"[Coppola] tells me, 'You know, I had faith in you. I believed in you,'" Pacino explains on the podcast. "I said, 'Yeah, I know.' He says, 'Well, you're not cutting it.' I thought, Oh, what do I do now? What do I say now?"

The actor tells O'Brien that Coppola sent him to view the rushes, meaning the footage of the film that had been shot to that point. Despite not having any desire to watch himself in the footage, Pacino obliged.

Related: Al Pacino reveals why he didn't say Best Picture titles in Oscars presentation: 'Seems to be some controversy'

"I'm looking at the screen and I'm seeing the takes of different things. I'm thinking, Well, that is not spectacular, but why should it be?" Pacino recalls. "Because I was hoping that I could blend in with the scenery and not be seen specifically, or, you know, spotted and wow. You know? I just wanted to just blend and just be natural. And I thought, Well, I know that's the way it looks now, but that's part of what is going to turn into Michael Corleone and that's gonna be the impact, because where did this guy come from? He's an enigmatic kind of character anyway throughout the Godfathers, the [first and second films] especially. So, I thought that was the way I was gonna go."

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But, like any good actor, he told his director what he thought he wanted to hear. "So of course I said to Francis — naturally the actor's instinct — I just said, 'Yeah, I see what you mean.' That always quiets everybody down. 'I see what you're saying, yes. We'll work on that.'"

Watch the full clip with Pacino, above. Pacino's full interview on Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend releases Monday on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and more.

Read the original article on Entertainment Weekly.