"He just had this quality that I can't even put my finger on but you just had to watch him." "He was truly a transformational actor." "He could do anything." "He was such a special human being and a uniquely talented actor." "He's just brilliant in all these five films we were talking about." "He's just terrifically brilliant in every one." "Excuse me." "Can I ask you a question?" "Do you know who this guy is?" "Nope." "Nope." "Something from The Godfather?" "He was the oldest one." "He was a little slow." " The son that betrayed?" "Yes?" " Yes." "Did he play Fredo?" "Yeah." "Frito." "Fredo." " Fredo." " Fredo." "Fredo." "Do you know what the actor's name is?" "His name was Fredo." "Shoot." "Wait a minute." "I'm going to get it." " I loved this guy too." " What was his name?" "He was very good." "Fredo." "I know it was you, Fredo." "I know it was you, Fredo." "You broke my heart." "You don't come to Las Vegas and talk to a man like Moe Greene like that!" "Did you say," Either we get away clean or we kill ourselves"?" "What the hell is that supposed to mean?" ""This is this."" "I'm your older brother, Mike, and I was stepped over!" "There was great excitement about The Godfather." "My older brother saw it first." "He says,"Me"..." "Even though he was older than me." "He says,"I'm like the youngest one."" "He says," I'd be more of a Michael, you know, or maybe Sonny." "But you, you know, you'd be Fredo."" "And he meant it like as an insult, you know and I understood what he was saying." "And I saw the movie, and I was, like,"Oh, okay." "That guy."" "But now I'm, like," Yeah, that guy!" "I want to be that guy."" " How are you, Fredo?" " How you doin'?" "Fredo?" "My brother Fredo, this is Kay Adams." " Hi." " How you doing?" " This is my brother Mike." " Are you having a good time?" "Yeah." "Yeah." "This is your friend, huh?" "Francis and I were in New York casting The Godfather." "And we were stuck on the Fredo character." "Every young actor did a test for every part." "Richard Dreyfuss was an old friend of mine and he was in a play off Broadway in New York at that time called Line." "And he called me up and asked if I would come see him in the play." "I didn't set anything up." "I didn't say,"I'm gonna getJohn."" "I wanted him to see the show." "Richard, of course, was terrific, but then there was this other guy in it that just caught my attention." "They still haven't done anything about that Peeping Tom next door." "You're telling me there's a peeper in one of my buildings?" "So, then there was this other guy in it that just caught my attention." "In the Playbill, you see his name, Cazale, Cazale so he must be Italian-American." "And he was just wonderful." "He was like..." "Instantly, I said,"That's Fredo."" "Over and done." "I thought he was perfect for the part." "He had the warmth and the gentleness." "He had all the qualities that I had hoped for in Fredo and I think there was no hesitation to cast him." "Aspetta, Fredo." "I'm gonna buy some fruit." "Okay, Pop." "Until that moment in front of the car you don't noticeJohn's eyes at all." "At first, he's in the background." "He's on the side." "You don't see his eyes before that." "And then you never see anything but his eyes." "And it's true, he just kind of knew." ""My character's entrance is here."" "You could look at that one moment and get him." "He personifies this fearful vulnerable little boy who wanted his daddy." "And he drops the gun." "He's so fragile." "It's unbelievable." "I mean, I could watch that movie over and over and over again." "Look who he was standing next to..." "Brando, Pacino, Duvall." "And he stood toe to toe with those guys and brought such heart." "Lfirst metJohn when I was a teenager." "We were messengers at Standard Oil together." "And I liked the guy from the moment I saw him." "I just liked him, and so we would occasionally talk." "And I had my little Chekhov book at the time." "We both found out we were actors." "And then years passed and I was doing a play called The Indian Wants the Bronx." "We were going up to Provincetown to play it." "And they said," We got this guy, he's playing the Indian."" "Now, I remember in passing, going up the stairs... 'cause we all had rooms in this house somebody peeked out of the door." "He said,"This guy's name is John Cazale."" "I never knew his name, and I didn't remember his name." "And so there was John." "He peeked his head out of the door." "I said,"You!"" "I said,"You again." "I know you."" "And we proceeded to work together." "John won the OBI E. I won the OBI E. The play won the OBI E." "And it became that long-time relationship." "Mike, you don't come to Las Vegas and talk to a man like Moe Green like that!" "Fredo." "You're my older brother, and I love you." "But don't ever take sides with anyone against the family again." "By the way, the subtlety in his acting... was so amazing..." "the emotional depth of it." "When Al arrives in Las Vegas, and John was already there and he's got the band set up and the hookers." "The band is playing." "He does this kind of thing." "And it's just so brilliant, that dance." " Welcome to Las Vegas." " It's all for you." "It was all his idea, right?" "And Al says,"Get rid of them."" "Get rid of them, Fredo." "Hey, Mike." "Fredo, I'm here on business." "I leave tomorrow." "Now get rid of them." "I'm tired." "And the look on his face was so amazing the emotional depth of it." "A whole kind of person became present in that one reaction to Al ordering him about like that." "Hey, come on!" "Scram!" "That's whereJohn fit in so miraculously." "Because all of that vulnerability, all of that pain that was in John as a man is suddenly connecting with us on a level that we never thought possible." "In the late '50s, we both were in acting class together studying with Peter Kass." "Peter Kass was quick to see what you might be ashamed of in yourself and in your background and to point out that this was part of who you were and that you needed every part of yourself." "The idea of only presenting yourself in the best light... was anathema to him." "If you look atJohn's work, you see how willingly he went to the dark side and how capable he was of doing that." "John felt very strongly that finding the character, you had to find the pain first... where that character was in pain, where he hurt." "He felt that that was the major motivation and that would translate into positive choices as an actor." "I think the artist is born in the suffering child." "And there are all kinds of reasons for children to suffer." "And I don't know exactly what it was that was John's reason but I could venture a guess certainly." "It was probably a strong, overbearing father that was difficult." "He was able to tackle anything that came up in the first Godfather." "Then I wrote a role for him in The Conversation." "He's a nice guy, for a cop." "I knew what was just the character of an assistant... would suddenly come to life as a real character." "The Conversation was a cult film." "People already had it on as their favorite film of all time especially people who wanted to show that they were impervious to the mass tastes." "You know, like," It's not The Godfather that I love the most." "It's..."" "John Cazale elevated the people around him." "He knew that part of his job... was not only to play his own characters with integrity but to play them in such a way that made the other characters credible." "So it's no accident that so many actors gave such great performances in his company." "I would bet money that all the actors that worked with him were inspired by what he did." "To take it that much further, to be that much more creative or risky or personal." "Because he seemed to be uncomfortably vulnerable in everything he did and that always makes people go, "I think I gotta work a little harder." "I think I better rethink what I'm doing here 'cause this guy is really going for it."" "He was an extremely intense actor and was highly concentrated and kind of single-minded about what he had set himself to do." "I recall whereJohn was sitting at this worktable and I had criticized him for something." "We'd have a much better track here if you'd paid more attention to the recording and less to what they were talking about." "And Francis said..." ""Maybe just a little more, Gene."" "And then John pushed me and managed to make all those pieces come together." " Jesus!" " Don't say that." "For Christ's sakes..." "Stan, don't say that again, please." "Don't use that word in vain." "It bothers me." "No one could have that look of hurt on his face better than him." "Or guilt." "There's the moment in The Conversation... where Gene Hackman goes to the convention." "Alan Garfield says, "Stan, just man the booth."" "And there comes John Cazale who works for Gene Hackman... who's now moonlighting." "Stanley, do me a favor, huh?" "Come on." "Mind the booth, all right?" "Come on." "That's what I pay you for." "Just a couple of minutes." " I just want to get a drink." "All right?" " Hi, Harry." "And the look on his face when he sees Gene Hackman just sort of, you know..." ""Yeah, I'm doing this." "So?" You know?" "But also hurt." "I mean, he's embarrassed, but he's also hurt that he's forced to do this." "He was an actor that had the courage to stay with what he had set out to do." "John was tough-minded." "This was a very unique actor." "You know, when I was your age..." "I went out fishing with all my brothers and my father, everybody and I was the only one that caught a fish." "Nobody else could catch one except me." "You know how I did it?" "Every time I put the line in the water, I said a Hail Mary." "And every time I said a Hail Mary, I caught a fish." "Something you might not pick up right away in Godfather I, but in Godfather Il he plays these characters that you shouldn't like but you like him, you really care about him." "He betrays his brother and you end up not liking Michael in Godfather II more than Fredo." "Can't you forgive Fredo?" "He's so sweet and helpless without you." "Because Michael becomes so cold in Godfather II and Fredo becomes all the more human." "He shows you a whole other side of this character." "That's a brilliant performance." "It really is." "Sometimes I think I should have married a woman like you did." "Like Kay." "Kids." "Have a family." "Once in my life be more like Pop." "It's not easy to be his son, Fredo." "It's not easy." "You know, Mama used to tease me." "She'd say," You don't belong to me." "You were left on the doorstep by gypsies."" "Sometimes I think it's true." "You're no gypsy, Fredo." "Mikey..." "I was mad at you." "Why didn't we spend time like this before?" "The great thing about Cazale is he never, ever loses sight of who that character is." "You can see why everyone treated him terribly." "You can see his weakness." "You can see his self-loathing, his resentment his disappointment in himself." "He understands him from the inside." "Fredo, come with me." "It's the only way out of here tonight." "Roth is dead." "Fredo." "He became whoever it was he was playing and he did that by asking questions... 'cause he taught me about asking questions and not having to answer them." "That's the beauty." "What's wonderful about it is you open the door to things." "Directors used to call him"20 Questions."" "He was never, never, never satisfied... with just the outlines of a character or just filling out the expected thing." "He got so much from the delving into things." "It was a lesson in itself." "I think I learned more about acting from John than anybody." "I haven't got a lot to say, Mike." "In that great scene with Michael, you just really felt for him." "You wanted him to be the guy who was rightfully next in line." "And when he's passed over, it's really heartbreaking." "And the way Francis staged it, the way Coppola staged it it's just phenomenal and a lesson to every director." "I remember when we shot that scene and thinking that we had shot something really that had come to life and was extraordinary." "And very definitely the way Cazale used the chair because that chair was there, and certainly you could slump in it but somehow he used it to express what was the point in a way that I had never anticipated." "I've always taken care of you, Fredo." "Taken care of me?" "You're my kid brother, and you take care of me?" "Did you ever think about that?" "Did you ever once think about that?" "Send Fredo off to do this." "Send Fredo off to do that." "Let Fredo take care of some Mickey Mouse nightclub somewhere." "Send Fredo to pick somebody up at the airport." "I'm your older brother, Mike, and I was stepped over!" " That's the way Pop wanted it." " It ain't the way I wanted it!" "I can handle things!" "I'm smart!" "Not like everybody says!" "Like dumb!" "I'm smart, and I want respect!" "He's such an imp." "You know, he's so irresponsible and yet he so desperately..." "so anxious to get his piece of the pie and to be respected." "Heartbreaking scene." "And what are we talking about?" "We're talking about a totally antisocial, probably terrible man." "And Cazale broke your heart." "He really let himself out there." "He's really vulnerable." "You know, it's not easy to play weak." "You know, if you get the script for The Godfather every young actor's gonna want to play Sonny or Michael." "You know, they're not gonna want to play Fredo." "You want to be strong, and you want to be..." "So you want to say, "Look how talented I am." "I'm strong." "I've got balls."" "Weakness is something that a lot of actors, I think, are afraid to play." "They'll play weak men, but they'll do it in a really sort of showboaty way to let you know that they're not weak, that it's a performance." "And Cazale was just so disinclined to do that." "He was really fun to work with." "You really showed up early when he was involved." "His approach was an artist's approach his way of living was an artist's way of living." "John was an actor, and that's what he was gonna do and nothing was gonna stop that." "Career or business or anything." "That was beside the..." "It didn't matter really." "What mattered was the plank and the passion." "The plank being the stage, and the passion..." "That's what he had." "Just from the moment you see him on screen in Dog Day Afternoon..." " He's so strange looking." " You the manager?" "You know, really intense face and then the receding hairline and the huge forehead and then the long hair." "I had just never seen a character like that on film before." "Just keep talking like nothing was wrong." "I remember we were casting, and Sidney Lumet wanted a 19-year-old boy." "He thought that would be very important, and he was sort of right." "I'd been reading a lot of people for it and Al kept asking me to read John." "So, of course, Sidney..." ""John." "That's not what I'm thinking." "John Cazale." "No, no." "The guy who did Fredo, no."" "Finally, because I've got such respect for Al, John came in." "I was stunned." "He could not have looked wronger." "And then he read and it was just the most extraordinary connection." "I ain't going back to that prison, Sonny." "I've got the image of him in my mind." "That image of that character." "Oh, man." "Everything he did..." "the hair, the movement." "You, come with me." "Watch him." "Sit down!" "The intensity..." "Wow." "You know, he's very intense, but nervous." "You felt at any time that he could really lose it." " Stay right there!" " Leave her alone!" "Please, don't!" "Cazale is scary in that movie." "He completely erases the dynamic that he had with Pacino in the Godfather movies." "Hey, you!" "Manager!" "Fucker!" "Don't get ideas." "I bark, that man there..." "See him?" "He bites." "You don't ever really believe when you're watching the movie that Pacino is gonna kill someone." "Cazale, you think, might." "There's a way out of this." "I'm telling you, there's a way out of this." " Were you serious about what you said?" " About what?" "About throwing..." "About throwing those bodies out the door." "That's what I want him to think." "I wanna know what you think." "'Cause I'll tell you right now, I'm ready to do it." "I'll tell you something." "When he says that line, you believe he's ready to kill somebody just out of fear, you know." "I think that intensity level's in his eyes throughout the entire film." "He provides that." "It's right there in those fuckin' eyes." "It's, like, they cut to him a lot in that movie and it's 'cause he's got the stakes and Lumet needs that to get the audience revved up." "There's just something in that face that takes you into an area that's very dark, personally dark and heartbroken." "There isn't a sadder character than Sal in Dog Day Afternoon." "And yet he's hilarious." "Sal." "Sal!" " What?" " Where are you?" "And it's not about funny lines at all." "It's just from the haircut to..." "Everything about it is comic." "Now, you gotta understand somethin'." "If we leave the country, there's no comin' back here." "One of the funniest moments in the movie was completely unexpected... was an improvised moment." "Is there any special country you want to go to?" "Wyoming." "No, Wyoming, that's not a country." "That's all right." "I'm gonna take care of it." "I don't know where that came from." "I know that the take was almost ruined because I started to laugh." "But I, thank God, didn't wreck the soundtrack." "And Al almost broke up." "You know, that's a laugh if you want to get a laugh there." "He would no more go for that, you know." "And so because of that, instead he goes past the stage of "Ha-ha!" "Wyoming." "That's not a country."" "He goes past that and you are forced into this sort of anxiety and sorrow for the guy." "Even in the funniest characters that he played there was always something tragic in it." "And even in the most tragic characters there was always something very funny." "The character he's creating, I believe is not necessarily something that the director or the writer envisioned." "I think what he brought to it ultimately... was something that surprised the hell out of everyone on the day it happened." "Yeah, you'd start a scene, and it would never start." "That was the beauty of it." "You realized, don't start, there's no such thing." "It just is a continuum." "Everything is a continuum." "And so he would just say..." ""What'd you do today, Al?" After I just said a line to him." ""You seem like you..." "You said you were gonna go to so-and-so..."" "And he would get you there, and you would just do this dance until you found your way and then the improvisations would start." "And then the improvisations would go, and when they started to connect to what the reality of the scene was he'd start the scene." "God, it was just glorious." "It was glorious." "I've seen a ton of actors around John just give it a couple of minutes and you just see them go, "Holy shit." "What's that?" "What's he doing?" "How does he do that?"" " No!" " What's the matter with you?" "You made me a promise, didn't you?" " Did you promise me something?" " Yeah." "Did you say," Either we get away clean or we kill ourselves"?" " Did you say that?" "Did you or not?" " I'm not talking about that." "Do you believe in keeping your promises?" " Yeah." " Then does it still go?" " Yes." " What the fuck are you talkin' about?" "Other actors either rose to the occasion or they didn't." "Pacino definitely did." "I think Al is one of the great actors of my generation and John gets a big assist." "He constantly made him better and better." "He was inspiring." "You just got inspired by it." "So you did it." "He made you better." "You know, John, in his short life had some of the most beautiful women as girlfriends on the face of the planet." "He always seemed to have nice girlfriends." "That's a good credit for him." "And he wasn't..." "He looked like Saint Francis of Assisi." "He wasn't exactly a lady-killer but there was something about him." "We all tried to study it and imitate it but we could never really catch on." "I rememberJohn telling me once, when I had been away..." "This is after we had made Dog Day together and Godfather." "Coming to Manhattan and telling me..." ""Oh, man." "I have met the greatest actress in the history of the world."" "You know, I said,"Really?"" "He said," Yeah, she's with me in the park in Measure for Measure."" "I said,"Really?" I thought, well, this is a guy..." "He's in love." "How good can she be?" "She can't be what he's saying." "And sure enough, it was Meryl Streep, so he was right." "You could see the sparks." "You can tell those two were attracted to each other if you look... what's going on that stage." "I was very..." "It was like an aura around them." "It was sexy." "He wasn't like anybody else." "He wasn't like anybody I'd ever met." "It was the specificity of him and his sort of humanity and his curiosity about people his compassion." "Oh, my God." "He fell madly in love with Meryl." "He was besotted with her." "I mean, she was just mad for him, and he was mad for her." "They had found each other." "He was a sensualist too..." "you know, John." "Very much so." "You eat a meal with him, I mean, you'd be done, finished... washed and in bed before he got halfway through his meal." "He took his time with stuff and it sometimes drove people nuts." "Then the cigar would come out." "He'd light it, look at it, taste it then finally smoke it." "It took him a real long time to leave the house, to lock the car." "We had just gotten a big color television." "It was a big event." "And John said," I'm gonna get the color right for you."" "And he came over about 9:00." "About 1:00 in the morning, John was still adjusting the knobs on the television meticulously." "I mean, I didn't even see what he was doing, but that was John." "I don't think what a lot people know about him is how funny he was." "He was a very funny man." "And he had a laugh." "Did anyone describe his laugh to you?" "He was spontaneous." "He had a great laugh." "Stan?" "Yeah, that was John." "He smoked cigarettes, too, as you saw in that photo." "He liked cigars." "He and my husband would smoke all night." "My apartment just stunk." "They smoked so many cigarettes in that apartment." "He was sharing a place with Meryl on Franklin Street." "And we..." "I remember the three of us went to Chinatown for lunch one day." "And at a certain point down there..." "John stopped and started spitting up blood in the gutter." "That's when I found out, that he finally said he had lung cancer." "And that's when I just lost it totally at that point, you know." "I felt..." "You know, he had, obviously, this terrible diagnosis but he was strong so there was definitely a lot of hope all along the way." "I thought, he's gonna be all right." "They can operate on that." "They can take care of him." "John always looked sick, you know?" "I mean, he never looked really healthy." "So I thought, well, he doesn't look any different than he ever did so he's gonna be fine." "I remember this visit he had to the doctor." "I remember waiting in the waiting room when he went in to see the doctor." "It was always, "Well, we're gonna get this thing."" "All I got from him was, "I'm gonna beat this." "I'm gonna beat this." "I'm gonna beat this."" "And one conversation about..." ""Will they let me work?"" "And then they were putting together The Deer Hunter." "It's gonna be all right, Nicky." "Go ahead, shoot!" "Shoot, Nicky!" "I learned about when Michael and I were meeting with actors and I was reading with some actors." "At one point, he wanted to useJohn and there was an issue about his being not well." "John Cazale had already been diagnosed with cancer and was uninsurable." "Obviously, if you die halfway through giving your performance it's gonna cost a great deal of money to recast you." "And Bob De Niro went to bat forJohn." "He won't tell me, because he's a very generous person but I think he secured the bond on John's participation." "He was sicker than we thought but I wanted him to be in it." "So Bob put his money down and got him in the film." "And he was great in the movie." "I mean, he was just beautiful in it." " Hey, Stosh!" " Hey!" " Hey!" "Look at this!" " How ya doin'?" " Hey, Michael." " Hey!" "Mikey!" "Hey, man." "How you doin'?" " Hey, where was you?" "Where was you?" " What do you mean?" "Where were you?" "Where was you?" "We had everything all set there." " The beer." "Right, Axel?" "Am I right?" " Right." "You got a mustache." " Yeah." " Hey, it looks pretty good." "I think it's very clear that his talents were getting richer with every movie." "Whether it was intuition or he was consciously doing it, I don't really know." "But he was alive and free to create that character." "I remember watching that movie." "I just felt like I was there in that town with these guys." "I didn't feel like they were acting." "Anybody see my boots?" "He's saying," Lend me your boots." "Lend me your boots."" "And De Niro's, like,"No, man."" "Hey, Mike, let me borrow your spares." " Your extra pair." " No, Stan." " What do you mean, no?" " Just what I said." "No." "No means no." "Some fuckin' friend." "You're some fuckin' friend." "You gotta learn, Stanley." "Every time you come up here, you got your goddamn head up your ass." "Maybe he likes the view from up there." "He says," Stan, you see this?" "This is this."" "This is this." "This ain't somethin' else." "This is this." "From now on, you're on your own." "You know your trouble?" "Nobody ever knows what the fuck you're talking about." ""This is this." What the hell is that supposed to mean?"This is this."" "You can watch the movie and the scenes that he's in and just watch him and be thoroughly entertained or really moved." "The scene where he's looking in the reflection of the window and he's checking his corsage, he's looking at his hair." "He's going like this, and he goes..." ""Beautiful."" "Beautiful." "What I like, all the little moments, like in the wedding scene." "He crosses himself and De Niro kind of looks at him like..." ""What, are you, like, religious all of a sudden?"" "Or later, there's a little scene where the gown passes them and he tries to step on the gown, you know, or somethin'." "Just, like, these little things." "He does this thing where he kind of looks down at himself then he kind of looks at her, and he raises his eyebrows." "And then he checks to see if his zipper's open." "It was such a brilliant little moment..." "funny." "Certain actors maybe will push it too much or they're over the top or under, or not knowing kind of what they're doing." "I never felt that with John." "We always had a good give and take." "He was real, and we could react and there was no forced kind of"acting" from John so you could relate and interact in a very solid way." "He's a really diligent person." "He works extremely hard for supporting other people and their effort by being involved with it." "It was a work process that was constant." "We would talk about the process endlessly and he was monomaniacal about the work." "I think probably I was more glib and ready to pick the first idea that came to me." "And he would say, "There's a lot of other possibilities."" "And that was a real lesson." "I really took that to heart, and I always think about it." "I know Nick will be back soon." "I know Nick." "He'll be comin' back too." "Right, Axel?" "Whatever he was going through with his illness it did not take a millimeter off his abilities to deliver that character." "I mean, he was just great in Deer Hunter." "But being in a movie was the smallest part of the tricky part of that landscape of our lives." "I mean, it was really tough." "And nobody really knew... whether these protocols would work." "But we were always very, very hopeful that everything would work out well." "The most amazing thing to see was Meryl during all of this and the way she was with him by his side right through the whole thing." "Meryl, she was with him to the end..." "at the hospital at the end." "She was an angel." "She was." "I so admired how she behaved." "It was very beautiful." "He was a very fortunate guy to have someone who loved him that much during his last days." "When I saw that girl there with him like that..." "I thought,"There's nothing like that."" "I mean, that's it for me." "As great as she is in all her work that's what I think of when I think of her..." "That moment." "That's what I think of." "He was such a special human being and a uniquely talented actor." "His compassion for his people that he was portraying and the sort of responsibility he felt to a fictional character as if it were a real soul that made him go that deep into his characters and do beautiful, beautiful work." "Forty-two years old." "He now would be, what, 72." "Thirty years." "Imagine all the work the incredible work he would have done in these 30 years." ""His whole life plays and replays as film in our picture houses, in our dreams." "He leaves us, his loving audience, a memory of his great calm his quiet waiting, his love of high music his love of low jokes the absurd edge of forest that was his hairline the slice of watermelon that was his smile." "He is unforgettable."" "He is unforgettable." "I had a really weird experience." "Surreal." "I did a voice on The Simpsons... where I played a bank robber." "So I'm watching The Simpsons when it aired and my partner they did a likeness ofJohn Cazale." "I was, like, humbled." "I was, like,"Oh, my God." "I'm acting with John."" "I don't know." "I really felt proud, you know?" "It was, like, hey, I really did..." "I really did become an actor, and this proves it, you know?"