Marlon Brando Didn’t Care

September 5, 2025October 31, 2025 RilalyLeave a comment

Marlon Brando was by many accounts the greatest actor who ever graced stage and screen. Peers, fans, and critics found his performances explosive, electric, and affecting. He had a way of connecting to the audience in a way that left us trying to remember the other members of the cast, and he was teamed with some of the greatest actors in the world in most of his movies. Marlon Brando was such a great actor that he changed acting at twenty-seven-years old. He captivated so many hearts and minds so early in his career that the field of acting bored him.

“[Marlon] Brando did not merely act the role, he became the part, allowing the role to seep into his pores, so that he stalked the screen like a young lion. Critics were stunned, blown away by the realism of the performance, they had simply never seen anything like him before.” —TheCinemaholic

Brando was the first movie star, to my mind, to publicly state that he was not the least bit grateful for the roles, the career, and the life his profession offered him. Why would a person who made enough money throughout his career to purchase his own island not be grateful for everything the acting profession gave him? The answer appears multifaceted and vague, but we can speculate that the core reason was that he achieved such rarified air so early on in his career that no one could humble him. His early work influenced the biggest stars of his era to be more real and find the element of truth in their work, and we can speculate that that level of adulation stunted his growth and left him an immature narcissist.

Marlon Brando didn’t care what critics thought of his performances, and he didn’t care what movie moguls, most directors, producers, or anyone behind the scenes thought of them either. Those of us who love great art might applaud this indifference, as it basically defines the term auteur, or an individual whose style and complete control give a performance its personal and unique stamp. After doing this so often in his career, Marlon Brando earned a place in the rarified air of those who don’t have to care anymore to continue to prosper in their career. If you just stood to applaud this artistic apathy, the idea that he didn’t care what you might think either, should sit you back down.

As an incredible artist, and Marlon Brando was an incredible artist, we shouldn’t expect an artist to create art for us. As a side note, we should note that no actor creates art, but they can bring a writer’s character to life for us. They can interpret or reimagine a character in a way the writer never imagined. They can make the character their own. Does anyone know Budd Schulberg, the screenwriter of On the Waterfront? How about Tennessee Williams, the writer of A Streetcar Named Desire? He’s historically famous, as is Mario Puzo, writer of The Godfather, but most of us know those movies as Marlon Brando movies. His performances in these movies were so great that he overshadowed everyone else involved in them. Yet, we shouldn’t expect him to act in a manner that pays homage to his fans, and we shouldn’t care why anyone strives to give their best performances every time out, as long as they do.

Having said that, there is something special about a great movie. We can lose ourselves in the time it takes to watch a movie. We can forget about our problems, and our need to get some sleep. If you’ve ever had a phone call disrupt a great movie, you know how deep into that movie you were. We develop deep connections to story the writer’s write, the manipulation of a great director, and the performance of the movie’s actors. We might develop such a deep connection to the actor that we develop a relationship with them. For some of us that relationship is all about loyalty, as we’ll see anything and everything that actor has ever done. Others expect the star to be nice to them in restaurants and other public venues to enhance that relationship. The point is, we accidentally grow to expect some level of appreciation for all that we’ve given them, even if it’s just some relatively insignificant comment they make on a talk show.

“Acting is just making faces. It’s not a serious profession,” Marlon Brando told Lawrence Grobel in Conversations with Marlon Brando in 1989. “Acting is not a profession that I have any great respect for… It’s something I do, but it’s not something I think is particularly noble,” Brando told Edward R. Murrow in a 1955 interview. “I think it’s a silly, childish thing to do for a living… I don’t think it’s a very dignified way to make a living,” he told Dick Cavett in a 1973 interview.

I don’t know if Brando was the first movie star to go out of his way to publicly damage our illusion that they care what we think. He did open the door for actors to publicly demean and diminish the iconic roles that created their careers. If they state that they now want to move past that signature role that made them famous, we’d understand such competitive instincts, but they now say that they’re embarrassed by those roles that made them famous. (Note: I never found a quote where Brando singled out a performance that embarrassed him.) To try to be fair to those who say these things, we can sympathize with the idea that it has to be tedious to hear someone say, “Hey, aren’t you Han Solo!” eighty movies and fifty years after he gave that iconic performance. Yet, to be so ungrateful that they’re not afraid to publicly state that they’re embarrassed by a role which we all still love, and one that spawned a career that may not have happened if not for that role, just sits in my craw in a way that cannot be removed mentally, biologically or surgically.

*******

Marlon Brando, a man many consider the best actor of his generation, didn’t care about acting, and he didn’t care for it. Did he say these things, because he thought it was cool not to care? Impossible, we say, that’s so high school, This man was a legendary actor who almost single-handedly changed the way actors approached their profession. Was it a marketing technique? If we read through Brando’s interviews, and the books written about him that give us insight into his thought process, Brando didn’t care about image, marketing, or any form of public relations. When we strip all that away, we’re left with the speculation that either Marlon Brando loathed himself so much that he viewed everything he did in a negative manner, or he said such things because he wanted us to think he was cool.

When our starting quarterback privately told us he didn’t care about football, soon after winning a state championship, we thought that was “so cool!” He was something of a mythic figure to us, basically telling us to not get so worked up about a silly game. That was high school though, filled with teenagers climbing all over one another to find new and different ways to be cool. Is it possible that this near-mythic figure of the acting world tried to accomplish the same thing by telling his fans to not get so worked up about something as silly as movies? We never leave high school, some social commentators say, and we never totally abandon the need to have others consider the fact that we don’t care about nothing “so cool!”

It was His Technique to Not Care

“Marlon Brando would often talk to cameramen and fellow actors about their weekend even after the director would call action. Once Brando felt he could deliver the dialogue as naturally as that conversation, he would start the dialogue.” —Dustin Hoffman in his online Masterclass.

Hoffman’s quote suggests that Brando found a technique to help him calm his nerves, and it helped him mentally overcome the idea that he had to top his previous performances. By talking to these people the way he did, Brando helped himself find a middle ground, a place where he could not care so much. It suggests that he tried to place himself in a more natural setting, convincing himself that he didn’t care, and he did it to achieve a better performance. It’s possible, even plausible, but my guess is Hoffman is over-interpreting Brando’s casual conversations.

Even some of his fellow actors, his peers, considered him the greatest actor who ever lived, the greatest of all time, the GOAT of the acting world. Whenever we label someone the GOAT, the next chapter of the narrative involves their single-minded obsession, the drive to be the best, the sacrifices he made to be the best, and the measures he took to stay on top. “To be the best, you must beat the rest,” is some semblance of a quote these individuals drop to describe their drive to be the best.

That is all true for most GOATs in sports, because even the most naturally gifted athletes must push themselves beyond their natural abilities to sustain continued dominance of those of equal, natural abilities. Brando’s success in the field of acting suggests this isn’t the case with acting. It doesn’t matter if you’re driven to succeed or obsessed with a level of success that continues to outshine your peers. They just need to look great on screen, deliver their lines on time, and do so in a manner suited for the role.

Yet, Brando didn’t always look great on screen, as he often showed up, on set, overweight in the latter half of his career, but his iconic status at that point was such that he didn’t have to be in shape to get roles. It was a little sad to see the man so old and out of shape in his latter movies, but it was still a treat to see him on screen. We didn’t care if he delivered his lines well, yet he often mumbled his lines, which was probably caused by his refusal to memorize them. To compensate for his refusal to memorize lines, directors had their people put placards around the setting for him to read. So, at least in the latter half of his career, he was reading lines to us.

Anytime we criticize the great ones, we hear excuses and obfuscations. “Brando cared,” his supporters say. “He cared so much that one of his acting techniques involved getting to a place where he didn’t care anymore.” This was Marlon Brando’s technique, they argue, and we call that technique method acting, but according to the book Songs my Mother Taught Me, Brando abhorred the ideas behind method acting, as taught by Lee Strasberg.  

“After I had some success, Lee Strasberg tried to take credit for teaching me how to act. He never taught me anything. He would have claimed credit for the sun and the moon if he believed he could get away with it. He was an ambitious, selfish man who exploited the people who attended the Actors Studio and tried to project himself as an acting oracle and guru. Some people worshipped him, but I never knew why. I sometimes went to the Actors Studio on Saturday mornings because Elia Kazan was teaching, and there were usually a lot of good-looking girls, but Strasberg never taught me acting. Stella (Adler) did—and later Kazan.”

As the “greatest actor in the world” who could command huge paychecks, because he could attract large audiences to his performances, Brando could’ve changed acting for a wide array of actors.

In his 2015 documentary, Listen To Me Marlon, Brando said that prior to his appearance on the scene, “Actors were like breakfast cereals, meaning they were predictable. Critics would later say that this was Brando being difficult, but actors who worked opposite him said it was just all part of his technique.”

Christopher Reeves responded to these characterizations when asked about what working with the great Brando on the set of 1978’s Superman was like, “I don’t worship at the altar of Marlon Brando, because I feel that he’s copped out in a certain way. He’s no longer in the leadership position he could be. He could really be inspiring to a whole generation of actors and by continuing to work, but what happened is the press loved him whether he was good, bad, or indifferent. People thought he was this institution no matter what he did. So, he doesn’t care anymore, and I just think it would be sad to be fifty-three, or whatever he is and not give a damn. I just think it’s too bad to be forced into that kind of hostility. He could be a real leader for us.” Speaking specifically on the role Brando played in Superman, Reeves added, “He took the $2 million ($19 million with today’s inflation) and ran you know.”

If we watch that Reeves interview on Late Night with David Letterman, we can tell Reeves was all worked up about this topic, after working with Brando. Reeves acted as if he couldn’t wait for Letterman’s question, because he wanted to get his experience of working with Brando off his chest.

Tallulah Bankhead, who co-starred with Brando in his first stage performance back in 1947, also clashed with the actor before firing him. She recommended him for the part of Stanley Kowalski in A Streetcar Named Desire. “[He was] a total pig of a man without sensitivity or grace of any kind.” Even she had to admit, though, that Brando had talent. “There were a few times when he was really magnificent,” Bankhead said. “He was a great young actor when he wanted to be.” (My emphasis.)

We can leave the final word to another acting great, Jack Nicholson, who was famously intimidated by Brando’s talent while working with him. Nicholson once joked, “When Marlon dies, everyone moves up one.”

“I watched some of Brando’s dailies, nine or ten takes of this same scene. Each take was an art film in itself. I sat there stunned by the variety, the depth, the amount of silent articulation of what a scene meant. The next day I woke up completely destroyed. The full catastrophe of it hit me overnight,” Nicholson reminisced.

He also summarized neatly the ubiquitous reach of Brando’s influence throughout the world of film acting, in one short sentence: “We are all Brando’s children.” He was speaking for many an acting great, from Pacino to Hopper, Christopher Reeve, Viggo Mortensen, and too many others to mention.

Did Brando care about any of that? When he cared, he cared. When he had a script that supported a cause he believed in, he cared. He didn’t care about Superman, but he got paid so much to star in it that he probably should’ve. He had been the biggest star in the world for so long that he stopped caring about it. He didn’t appreciate his standing in the world for what it was, at the time, and he didn’t really care when it ended. He read his lines, and he did his job.

The next question, and it’s one I usually loathe when it comes to innovators, disruptors, and enterprising young minds who create. The line goes like this, “If he hadn’t invented this, someone would have eventually.” They say this when the subject of Nikola Tesla, Leonardo da Vinci, Isaac Newton or any innovators notions, products, or inventions are discussed. They say this when another suggests they were indispensable on the timeline. Was Marlon Brando, and his influence on acting indispensable? Method acting and the new brand of “realism” that Brando learned and displayed for the world may not have been as immediately accepted, applauded, or adopted if Marlon Brando never existed, but the techniques Brando used were being taught in acting schools. Some suggest that if Brando never existed, Montgomery Clift would taken those techniques to the world. As great an actor as Clift was, he wasn’t the explosive “shining star” Brando proved to be.

When the subject of movie stars arrives, most of us make it all about “me.” We judge them based on how nice they were to “me.” “You think he wasn’t nice? He was nice to me. He even went so far as to say something nice to my son.” We also view movie stars, sport stars, and all celebrities based on our brief encounter with them, because we want to be a part of the story. “He didn’t me tip well,” “She said she doesn’t do autographs,” or “They didn’t even so much as look at me throughout our Uber.” I try very hard to avoid making it about “me.”

I met a number of celebrities in a previous life, and I found their particular demographic similar to all of the other ones. Some celebrities went out of their way to be nice to me. Some were dismissive, and others were rude, but most of them treated me the way everyone else does, and I never really cared one way or another. Most of us do. We loved their movie so much “we” bought that movie on DVD, “we” have three of their songs memorized, and “we” developed a connection to them that “we” thought they should consider special. When they didn’t reciprocate in anyway, “we” felt they diminished our special moment. When they didn’t tip us according to expectations, we went to Facebook to report them. When they refused to join us in a selfie, refused a request for an autograph, or even offer us a hearty smile or handshake, we proclaimed we’d never watch one of their movies again. We can’t help it, we judge people, places, and things from our perspective. On this particular note, I might agree with Brando’s general assessment that we all get a little silly about movies.

Thus, if I met the late, great actor, and he dismissed me as pond scum, I wouldn’t be anymore insulted by that comment than if anyone else said it. It’s the general sense of a lack of appreciation that sticks in my craw. If he ever dismissed the role of The Godfather, which he didn’t to my knowledge, as “reading lines and making faces”, I wouldn’t find it personally insulting, even though I connected with that character so much I felt a personal relationship with it. I would be angry though. I would be angry that a man who was given such an incredible opportunity in life to affect so many people didn’t appreciate it in the least, and that appears to be the case with the greatest actor who ever lived, Marlon Brando.

Scat Mask Replica IX

December 2, 2019December 4, 2019 RilalyLeave a comment

My favorite artists offend me on a personal, philosophical, and artistic level. They’re emotional robots who have as much sympathy for others as they do for themselves. My favorite artists might use some swear words and some provocative imaginary, but they’re not reliant on them. They’re also not offensive for the sole purpose of being offensive. They don’t care who they offend in their pursuit of artistic purity, and they don’t pick safe targets. Some might say that it’s not possible to be observant, creative, and artistic without sympathy, but my favorite artists ask how an artist can report on the world if they handicap themselves by being sympathetic to the people they report on. My favorite artists refute my worldview in a rational and constructive manner, and I find their challenges to my belief system engaging. They might not change my mind on one single issue, but I don’t think they care. I don’t think that’s why they’re here.

Acting is as difficult and specialized as any other art form, but for all the overblown accolades and financial rewards we provide actors, they’re little more than vessels who carry artistic messages to the people. It takes special qualities to convince an audience that they’re another person. It takes other qualities to capture emotions and convince an audience that those reactions are genuine. Taken down to their core, these elements involve lying, so an individual who wants to become an actor should be an unusually good liar. Those who spent an inordinate amount of their youth learning the subtle intricacies of convincing others of a lie, before they ever thought of becoming an actor, might have the qualities necessary to convince others of the lie that they’re another person. These qualities are difficult to quantify and qualify, but they do lead to some sort of ingrained qualities that is evident to all who seek them for their productions.

For entertainment purposes, an audience agrees to enter into any fictional production with some suspension of their critical facilities, but at some point, the audience wants that latitude they offer rewarded. This is where those with ingrained qualities shine. Some are better at it than others are, of course, but at some point all inherent qualities are equal and it becomes difficult to distinguish one quality actor from another. Physical traits play a huge role, of course, as some casting agencies won’t let prospective applicants in the door without a decent headshot, but as with any profession those with a hunger to succeed, can overcome physical limitations, so what separates a quality actor from those who can never quite manage to capture the same on-screen magic?

If an actor has established a motif after acting in 40 different productions, how difficult is it to convince other people that they are a 41^st character. Landing a key role in a beloved production can advance a career, but it can also kill it, if the audience’s association with a particular character is too strong. We call it being typecast. We’ve also witnessed some actors who are so charismatic they can play themselves every time out, but the others are chameleons and shape shifters who assume another’s characteristics so well that the audience forgets there’s an actor playing the role. How do any of these types wipe the slate clean, so they can help the audience wipe their slate clean? Is it easier for a quality actor to be an empty vessel? I would think that a strong sense of identity would be a difficult obstacle for any actor. If they have little-to-no character of their own, wouldn’t it be easier for them to assume the characteristics of another? When I watch a master craftsman accomplish what so few can do, I wonder if there’s an equation that suggests the less character an actor has in life the better they are at playing another.

On that note, we’ve all heard the stories of method actors who demand that everyone involved in the production call them by their character’s name. Is this a silly, childish game? No, according to some on the inside, and those who want inside, some actors demand this, so they can get “locked in” on their character. In order for them to play pretend properly, others have to join in on the façade. If someone breaks that spell by reminding them that they’re Joey as opposed to Esteban, they can’t continue. Does it kill the empty vessel thing? Is the spell is broken? I’m not an actor, and I have no idea about the process involved in playing another character, but I wonder how much of this is stoked by public relations outlets trying to hype a role one of their clients is in to build the mystique of the actor’s abilities. If it’s all true, and I don’t doubt that it is, in some cases, it seems so silly to me.

We’ve all met unusually good liars who couldn’t find a channel their ability in anyway. We’ve heard them lie about matters we considered so inconsequential that we wonder why they lied about it in the first place. After we hear enough lies from unusually good liars, and the quantity is not as important as the quality, it becomes apparent that they want us to think they have a master plan. They might not have a master plan, but some elements of their intangible qualities lead us to believe they do. Some of these qualities suggest that they pity the rest of us for our struggles, and they might even be laughing at us. They don’t look like they have a plan. They look as bored, unfocused, and as random as the rest of us, but what if they weren’t? What would we think of them if they were someone else? How would our opinions change if they had such an adventurous past that it informed their present? What if their past was so adventurous that they couldn’t wait to tell us their tales? What if none of them were true?

Screenwriters love coming-of-age scenes, and to express their views of coming of age in the compressed time a movie allots them, they use common tropes. One of their favorites tropes involves an actor playing a teacher asking a pre-teen actor a question about a classic book. The child actor’s answer is often far too complex for their age. (The screenwriter is attempting to rewrite and vicariously relive their pre-teen years by appearing more intelligent than they actually were in junior high.) The child actor’s lines often involve shocking, adult swear words that sophisticate their answer in a manner that the screenwriter intends to shock the audience’s sense of moral values. Using children in such scenes feels like a cheat, because moviemakers know adult audiences will feel silly if something a child says offends them. We are to forget that we’re watching a movie created by adults, and that the child actor is reading the lines adults write for them. In the movie, the principle suspends the kid for using offensive language in class. While in the principal’s office, the adult actors playing the child’s parents are dutiful and respectful before the principal. While walking away from the principal’s office, the adult actors offer the child actor sympathetic condolences that suggest that not only is the matter closed as far as they are concerned, they are actually quite proud of the spunky kid for speaking his mind. The supporting character actors, playing the teacher and the principle, eventually develop an indirect way of showing support for this precocious child actor by rewarding him for an unprecedented level of sophistication. (The screenwriter is receiving the vicarious accolades that they felt they always deserved.) (End Scene.)

“I don’t care if you disagrees with some of the ideas expressed in that book,” I would tell my child, as we walked away from the principal’s office, “you sullied your reputation with the language you chose to express your opinion. It’s immoral and disrespectful to say such words in a classroom setting, but more than that, it leads others to believe that you are not capable of formulating a decent argument without using such words. If your argument begins and ends with swear words, no one will remember what you said in between. They will only remember that you “had the cajones” to say a swear word in class, and while that might pay some immediate dividends among your peers, they will not respect you long-term for it. If however, you drop an articulate refutation of the book that expresses a passionate view, you might blow those kids away. No one cares about a book at your age, and they won’t care what you think of it either, unless you say something so profound that they can’t help but notice. Trivial moments like these define you. They might also affect who you’re going to be.

“If you insist on offering your class such a provocative refutation, don’t forget to back that characterization up with details,” I would add. “It’s not enough to call your philosophical opponents a name. You still have to defeat their arguments. Most provocateurs forget to do that when they are trying to sound cool, and most of us forget to hold them accountable for this failure. Most of us will only remember the name you called them. It’s pointless. If you choose the other road, while standing on this philosophical fork in the road, and you strengthen your mind to a point that you can defeat other people’s ideas with concise factual data, and/or a persuasive opinion that is not dependent on emotional provocation, you will leave an impression on them that you are an intellect.”

The Joker is one of the greatest bad guys of all time, and I love stories that involve The Joker, but I never feared the character in an artistic sense. For most of my life, The Joker never really hurt anyone. It was all a game. He said things that made him sound psychopathic, and he had a deranged laugh, but the worst thing he did, for decades, was create precarious James Bond-like situations for Batman to undo, under time constraints, to save the good citizens of Gotham. I never feared The Joker, in an artistic sense, in the manner I did the Tommy DeVito character that Nicholas Pileggi and Martin Scorsese created for Joe Pesci in Goodfellas, based on the real-life actions of Tommy DeSimone. Their Tommy DeVito character made me so uncomfortable that I wanted it over. I didn’t care how it ended. I just wanted to return to my comfort zone. I don’t recall ever having such a visceral reaction to a character before, and to my mind, that’s art. If The Joker ever caused such a reaction to an audience, that ended when DC Comics’ editors put an end to any killing in the second year of The Joker’s publication history, and they did it because they didn’t want to influence young, impressionable minds to commit violent acts. Their goals were laudable, but they essentially defanged The Joker. The psychological games The Joker played were some of my favorites, but in the era of The Sopranos and Quentin Tarantino, The Joker seemed like nothing more than the other team in an exciting chess match, until Christopher Nolan and Todd Phillips changed that in the movies.

“I pay hard, cold cash for such an experience,” I informed a friend after she said she didn’t care for another movie, because it made her feel uncomfortable. I told her about my experience with Tommy Devito, and how uncomfortable he made me, and how much I loved it. She couldn’t understand that mindset. She considered such characters and their movies too realistic and too unnerving. I told her that I think that should be every moviemaker’s primary goal.

Most people don’t think this way about artistic enterprises. If they attend violent or horror movies, they want them toned down just a tad, so they can maintain a comfort zone, and they don’t want to pay their hard-earned money to experience anything that rattles their core. I’ve experienced moments in other movies when they tweak my comfort zone, and I always think back to my friend saying that she doesn’t want to be uncomfortable in a movie theater. If she had a particularly violent past, or even a violent incident that such movies unearthed in an uncomfortable manner, I could understand, but she didn’t. She was just a casual moviegoer who doesn’t enjoy it when movies, or art in general, take her to uncomfortable places. I know most people don’t think this way, as evidenced by most of the movies they make, but as a movie connoisseur, I seek those that offend me, horrify me, and takes me to uncomfortable places. The theme of my rant might be violent movies, but I often wonder if the world would be a better place if more people welcomed, with open arms, those who constructively challenge our ideas and ideals in a rational manner, as opposed to those who just provide us more blankets in our comfort zone.