The Offer's Dan Fogler And Patrick Gallo Recall Seeing The Godfather For The First Time - Exclusive
"The Offer" is a new limited series on Paramount+ that chronicles the turbulent making of "The Godfather," the 1972 crime drama masterpiece directed by Francis Ford Coppola and based on the best-selling novel by Mario Puzo. Both the director and the author are key characters in the new series, played respectively by Dan Fogler (the "Fantastic Beasts" films) and Patrick Gallo ("The Irishman").
The rest of the cast includes Miles Teller as producer Albert Ruddy, Matthew Goode as Paramount studio head Robert Evans, Juno Temple as Ruddy's assistant Bettye McCartt and Burn Gorman as Paramount owner Charles Bludhorn — all of whom clash with Coppola, Puzo, each other, rival studios, and the Mafia itself as they struggle to cast "The Godfather" and bring Puzo's epic to the screen.
Like many actors and film enthusiasts in general, Fogler and Gallo came into "The Offer" as tremendous fans of "The Godfather," although each man has a separate recollection of how they were first introduced to this Oscar-winning, monumentally influential classic.
For Patrick Gallo, "The Godfather" mirrored aspects of his own life that were all too familiar. "I think I was probably around 12 or 13 when I saw it," he told Looper in an exclusive interview. "I came from a world where a lot of the people that were portrayed in 'The Godfather' were very similar to the people that were around me and my father and his friends. A lot of them were involved in businesses that weren't exactly on paper."
'The Godfather' impacted Gallo and Fogler's lives in different ways
Patrick Gallo added that those childhood memories of sitting at the table "with policemen and gangsters all sharing the same bowls of pasta and salad" helped him recognize a dynamic at work in "The Godfather" that he had seen up close. "When I saw the film, it was like watching home movies. I recognize the personalities, the attitudes, the energy. It was very familiar and it felt like I was still home, just watching through a keyhole of my own life."
While Dan Fogler's family life didn't quite intersect with the kind of "family business" that Patrick Gallo witnessed as a child, he says that "The Godfather" was nevertheless part of the culture around him in more subtle ways.
"When I was growing up, there was this guy that lived on our block, that everyone was pretty sure ran numbers for the mob," he explained during the interview with Looper. "He had this beautiful Jaguar convertible, a classic car, and he fashioned the horn to be the 'Godfather' theme. So I would hear this when I would go play outside ... the movie's 50-years-old and it's been in my life for, like, my entire life."
When Fogler became an actor, "The Godfather" and its equally revered sequel, "The Godfather Part II," had a direct effect on him professionally. "Between Part 1 and Part 2, you cover all the great actors, and such amazing performances," he shared. "I watched it, studying them, and really that was my master class. Those movies are really when I first started realizing, 'Oh, I want to do this stuff.' I would pick an actor like Brando or Pacino or De Niro, and just reverse engineer, watch all their movies. But 'Godfather' was the catalyst."
New episodes of "The Offer" are streaming on Paramount+ every Thursday.