Let’s Forget That ‘Jack’ And ‘The Rainmaker’ Ever Happened

In GQ, Francis Ford Coppola speaks truth to scene-chewing-actor power by lamenting how the careers of once-hungry artists Al “Two for the Money” Pacino, Meet the Fockers star Robert DeNiro, and Jack Nicholson (still kind of awesome) have turned out: “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 theatre … (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.” [Rush & Molloy]