Coppola Criticizes Lazy Pacino, Nicholson and De Niro

Posted on October 17, 2007

Legendary filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola royally dissed actors Robert De Niro, Al Pacino and Jack Nicholson, saying they had all gotten lazy and no longer took challenging roles. In a new interview in GQ magazine, he also says that Jack Nicholson is mean, which is not exactly a surprise to anyone who follows celebrity gossip over the years.

"I met both Pacino and De Niro when they were really on the come," Coppola tells GQ's Nate Penn. "They were young and insecure. Now Pacino is very rich, maybe because he never spends any money; he just puts it in his mattress. De Niro was deeply inspired by (Coppola's studio American) Zoetrope and created an empire and is wealthy and powerful.
"Nicholson was - when I met him and worked with him - he was always kind of a joker. He's got a little bit of a mean streak. He's intelligent, always wired in with the big guys and the big bosses of the studios.
"I don't know what any of them want anymore. I don't know that they want the same things. Pacino always wanted to do theater ... (He) will say, 'Oh, I was raised next to a furnace in New York, and I'm never going to go to L.A.,' but they all live off the fat of the land."
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"I think if there was a role that De Niro was hungry for, he would come after it. I don't think Jack would. Jack has money and influence and girls, and I think he's a little bit like (Marlon) Brando, except Brando went through some tough times. I guess they don't want to do it anymore. "You know, even in those days, after 'The Godfather,' I didn't feel that those actors were ready to say, 'Let's do something else really ambitious.'

Pacino and DeNiro both refused to respond to the quotes, perhaps realizing that their old friend was just blowing off steam.

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