10 Movies That Actually Benefited From Bad Acting
3. The Godfather
The role of Don Corleone's (Marlon Brando) enforcer Luca Brasi in The Godfather was played by Lenny Montana, a non-actor and real-life mob enforcer cast in the part after the original actor died of a stroke.
Montana is visibly nervous during the iconic scene where he congratulates Vito on his daughter's wedding, a result of his lack of acting experience and anxiety over performing opposite an actor of Marlon Brando's stature.
But quite ingeniously director Francis Ford Coppola decided to lean into Montana's mumbly performance, having him shoot an additional scene where he's seen practising his speech to Don Corleone.
In the hands of a lesser filmmaker Montana's strained performance might've come off as amateur, ill-advised stunt casting, but Coppola had the good sense to roll with it, instead emphasising his neurosis as a character trait of Brasi himself.
All in all it helps make Brasi a more memorable and believable character, while underlining Don Corleone's standing in this world by having even a brutal mobster be nervous around him.