Tracy Letts

all of his sons in the Godfather movies, although Duvall's only seven years younger than Brando.

So he's a little older vintage than those other dudes.

But the same trajectory of acting classes in New York, trying to book TV gigs, doing some theater –

he knew Gene Hackman and Al Pacino.

They all knew each other.

They were all coming up together at the same time.

And yeah, the approach, you know, they heard Mr. Duvall in his Howard Stern interview when Howard Stern was trying to kind of knock Brando for his, for this business of reading cue cards.

There's the photograph you've probably seen of Duvall with Brando's lines taped to his chest.

And Duvall was quick to say, well,

Yeah, partly lazy and partly not.

I mean, there was, in fact, a method to that madness.

There was an idea behind it.

Brando didn't want to learn the lines too well because he wanted it to seem very fresh.

And Howard Stern asked him, said, why?

Did you ever do that?

He said, I tried it.

It didn't work for me.

I actually tried.

He tried to do what Brando was doing, and he couldn't make it work.

He had to learn the lines the good old traditional way.