Talia Shire: The Hollywood Interview

Talia Shire as Connie Corleone in The Godfather.


TALIA SHIRE REMEMBERS THE FAMILY BUSINESS
By
Alex Simon

Talia Shire was born Talia Rose Coppola April 25, 1946 on Long Island, New York, the third, and youngest, child of orchestra conductor Carmine Coppola and his wife, Italia. Young “Tally” grew up immersed in the arts, and attended the prestigious Yale Drama School, in addition to studying with renowned acting guru Stella Adler in New York during the 1960s. After making her debut in the Roger Corman production “The Young Racers” in 1968, she appeared in several other low budget films into the early 1970s, during which time she wed composer David Shire, taking his surname. Around this time, older brother Francis was casting a gangster picture he was reluctantly directing for the money. It was called “The Godfather,” and Talia Shire’s turn as Connie Corleone, the lone sister of the world’s most famous mafia clan, is now the stuff of cinematic legend, and earned her an Oscar nomination as Best Supporting Actress for "Godfather II" in 1974.

Shire continued her contribution to cinematic history with the role of Adrian, love interest to Sylvester Stallone’s “Rocky” in five of the film franchise’s six installments. She was again tapped for Oscar, this time as Best Actress, in 1976. Talia stepped behind the camera to direct the Corman-produced “One Night Stand,” starring Ally Sheedy, in 1995 and has watched with pride as her sons Jason Schwartzman (star of indie favorites “Rushmore” and “I Heart Huckabees” to name a few) and Robert Schwartzman (a composer and musician) have carved out successful careers of their own (their father, producer Jack Schwartzman, succumbed to cancer in 1994).

Paramount Pictures Home Video releases The Godfather: The Coppola Restoration on DVD September 23, a magnificent five disc set containing remastered editions of all three “Godfather” films, along with two bonus discs of supplements that detail the films’ production. Talia Shire spoke to us recently about what it’s like being a member of film fact, and film fiction’s, most famous families.

It’s amazing watching all the retrospective documentaries in this new box set. “The Godfather” literally had everything seemingly going against it in the beginning.
Talia Shire: Francis was 32, and owed a lot of money, and really wanted to make small, personal films, and really he took the job because George Lucas and the others at American Zoetrope convinced him that with the money he made directing this, they could all make their little pictures. (laughs) It’s really funny, if you think about it. So Francis didn’t even want to cast me as Connie, in the beginning. I was dealing with something on my own at the time, which was an enormous amount of stage fright after Yale Drama School. I felt sort of like Humpty-Dumpty. I asked Francis for an audition, and he said “no,” at the time, and he was quite right, because I was so green. My manager then was named Fred Roos, who I introduced to Francis, and I think he and Mario Puzo, after a month, convinced him to let me audition. The audition was held in New York, and in that room, waiting their turn, was Martin Sheen, Pacino, and most of the actors in the cast were there. Francis gives you an honest-to-God actor’s audition. He doesn’t do it in an office where the telephone rings. I knew my audition was terrific and I was picked by Robert Evans’ office. I used the name “Shire,” not “Coppola,” so they had no idea Francis was my older brother. After I was picked, Francis and I had a long talk, because he was very concerned about the politics that go on in studios. You know “I’ll give you one little sister for two cousins,” that kind of thing. Looking back on it, I realize how hard it was for him to have me on that movie. It wasn’t like “Okay sis, you got the job!” (laughs) His casting choices were extraordinary, and they went against most of the studio’s casting choices, but ultimately, they allowed him to do what he wanted.

Connie and Carlo (Gianni Russo) in happier days.

The fact that his choices were, for that time, so offbeat, gives the film the feeling of authenticity it still has today.
You said it. Diane Keaton, I remember I had known her way back in New York, and she had been doing this great commercial, I forget for which product, but it was getting a lot of play on TV, where she was just adorable. Mario Puzo came up to me and said “Oh, I just love Diane. She’s perfect for Kay.” So this was a major break for her. Then John Cazale, who played Fredo, and Al Pacino, were both already big stars in the New York theater world, both had won Obie Awards, I think, but nobody had heard of them in Hollywood. But young actors were talking about them all the time.

That was really the first time in years that East Coast actors were brought to Hollywood because prior to that, it had been two separate worlds.
It really was at that point. Again, that was Francis’ doing. You have to remember that Francis was a theater major as an undergraduate, so he came from a different tradition and had enormous respect for actors, and his writing and Mario’s writing was really up there, in terms of dramatic text.

It was Shakespearian.
Yes, very Shakespearian with the first one, then the second one was very Greek, so Francis really understood the scale, dramatically, and wasn’t afraid of that literature, just like Orson Welles wasn’t afraid to bring that in, so you have this extraordinary blending visually, and in terms of the other traditions.

The Godfather: The Coppola Restoration DVD box set.

I know the first couple weeks of part I being shot were rather nerve-wracking, because everyone was afraid Francis was about to be fired. What was that like for you?
Francis was great to all of us, but it was awful for him. That’s when I felt, personally, that I wished I wasn’t there. I felt so awful for him, and that’s when you don’t need your sister hanging around, you know what I mean? I really was watching my P’s and Q’s, because I didn’t want to cause him any more grief than what he was going through. Plus his wife, Ellie, was about to give birth to their daughter Sofia on top of everything else! So they were just enormously dramatic, those times. It took about two weeks before the studio saw how good the footage was that was coming in, before we all realized he wasn’t going to be fired. But before that, it was a hair-raising couple weeks, let me tell you. I think they even had another director ready to go.

Shire and James Caan as Sonny.

I think there was a guy on-set who was even doing his best to sabotage Francis, so he could take over, is that right?
Yes, absolutely. The thing is, the great Gordon Willis, who shot all three films, had a visual intuition that he and Francis would collaborate on. Initially, when they sent in the dailies, the studio executives didn’t know what to make of it, because they’d never seen a color palate like the one he and Francis were using. It just looked really dark, and really weird to them, and in pieces, they didn’t know what to make of it. As time progressed, those pieces started to come together, and then they understood.

Apparently the turning point was after the scene where Michael shoots Sollozzo and McCluskey. When the studio chiefs saw that, they left well enough alone.
I think that was true, and what I found out later, was the scene where Carlo beats up Connie, that was such a tough scene to shoot, and when they saw how well Francis brought it off, they were impressed.

Connie and Carlo's battle royale.

You bring up a question I’ve been dying to ask: were either you or Gianni Russo really hurt during that scene? It was a single, continuous take, and it really looked like you were smashing things and he was beating the hell out of you.
No, neither one of us were hurt, but I was so worried that Gordon, who was right in the middle of it, was going to get hurt with all the dishes and things flying around, and if I had blown it, they would have had to clean up and start over from scratch, which they couldn’t afford to do because the budget was very tight. I remember that my shoe fell off at one point, and I just kept running, and thinking ‘Please feet, don’t fail me now!’ Gianni and I worked very hard on the blocking of that scene so neither one of us would get hurt, but he told me something later that was very interesting, which was that scene was very difficult for him because his mother had been a battered wife, and it was very hard for him to play that out.

Let’s talk about how the feeling of the shoot progressed with each film. Was there a different feeling on the sets of parts II and III than there was on part I?
It’s interesting because many of the actors had become great stars by part II, and you mentioned earlier that great scene where Pacino commits the murder in part I, and that’s where you really see Pacino emerge as an actor, I think. It’s based on “The king is dead, long live the king,” I think, so there’s enormous tradition there. But during that scene, I think Al starts to go through this enormous transition, both in the role, and as an actor. You see his aesthetic changing, and he becomes extremely empowered, on every level. Then on the second one, we all worked together, and there was an enormous sense of affection for each other. We were a family at that point. The second one was so stunning, which rarely happens with a sequel, but Mario and Francis were always working to up the ante. Now you have Greek literature, because you have the death of a mother, and a brother killing a brother, which was a very hard scene for us to shoot, because we all loved Johnny Cazale so much. We didn’t want to lose him, and then we did for real a few years later. That was a very painful loss for us.

I think when he did “The Deer Hunter” he was dying of cancer, and had passed away prior to its release in 1978.
Yeah, I think you’re right. That was a tough one, boy. Actors are really good people, on the whole, and have a sense of kinship, and when they’re actors like Johnny; they also have great compassion and humanity that they bring to the table, so it was a major, major loss on many levels. A real tragedy. John was a great acting partner. He made your performance better.

You can see in all of his work, particularly in “Dog Day Afternoon,” how present he was in every scene.
Yes, he was amazing in that, and Al was devastated by his death. They were very close.

Tell us about working with Brando.
Oh, God! We were all so blown away to be working with him. Just to watch him work, was such a treat. He was a professional. He knew everything about film craft, how things cut together. He knew how everything worked, and was very kind and generous to all these young actors, just terrific. Brando would put ear plugs in his ears, because his teacher Stella Adler, who was also my teacher, had this thing called “active listening,” where you really listen to your partner, because your partner is you. So he’d put in ear plugs so that he’d have to strain to hear the other actors, and really pay attention. When we tried it, we just couldn’t hear, and missed our cues. (laughs)

The lesson there is that you can’t mimic God!
(laughs) Yeah, he was just a great craftsman, and wasn’t some “method mumbler” like so many naysayers had tried to make him out to be in his youth. This was a great actor, in any tradition.

Even in the bad movies he did, you couldn’t take your eyes off him. That’s the sign of a great actor, I think: he or she can still be brilliant with substandard material.
That’s just God’s gift of charisma. I just think that’s the way he was designed. But when you marry that incredible charisma and that incredible mind with great choices, that was Stella Adler’s thing about the choices you make, the shape of that just took it to another level and would illuminate not just that character, but the text of the entire piece.

Shire and Sylvester Stallone in Rocky.

Let’s talk about the metamorphosis of your character, Connie Corleone. If you look at the “arc” of Connie and that of Adrian, your character in the “Rocky” films, they’re very similar: both start out as shy, mousy women, who grow into these forces to be reckoned with.
Well, I guess I’m very much like Adrian: terribly, terribly shy and very censored, for various reasons. Adrian blossoms through love and partnership, whereas Connie is sacrificed, so her development in terms of her power is very distorted, almost like the “Sunset Boulevard” character by part III, where she’s just been terribly sacrificed. But they both come from a place where they have been dismissed.

Yes, and Adrian becomes empowered, while Connie becomes corrupted.
Yeah, well for heavens sake, her husband’s been murdered by her brother after he plotted to kill her other brother, so in many ways, she becomes like her father, like The Godfather. Although, she emerges when her mother dies, “long live the Queen,” although she’s not happy with Michael’s idea of becoming legitimate.

Shire as Connie in The Godfather Part III.

When one looks at the Coppola family, I can’t think of another Hollywood dynasty except maybe the Hustons, who keep this amazing tradition in the arts alive.
People ask about that, and I’ve always said that we’re in the tradition of a circus family. And what I mean is, we kill ourselves for our work. Francis did a creative camp at his place in Napa about twelve years ago, for only family members. He directed a play, Sofia directed a play, Jason wrote a play…because Francis had been a camp counselor in drama. So that’s what we do: we pass on those traditions in theater, and we’re very proud of it, and we don’t like lazy people, and there’s no free ride. We may be competitive, but as in great circus families, we never drop the other members, so we can do what I call “the dangerous tricks.”