The Godfather star Marlon Brando’s final film role is recorded as The Score, which he appeared in alongside Edward Norton and Robert DeNiro. If the one scene he’d filmed had not been cut, though, another of his last works would have been Scary Movie 2.
While promoting the new series of Netflix’s Russian Doll, Natasha Lyonne, who played possessed young girl Megan Voorhees in the 2001 horror spoof, opened up about Brando’s involvement in the film before he had to drop out, allegedly due to illness.
“I have a VHS copy of the dailies that I got because Marlon Brando’s final role – sadly for him, but luckily for me – is doing this Exorcist opening teaser,” she explained on an episode of Entertainment Weekly’s video series Role Call (opens in new tab). “I don’t know what he was thinking, really.
“He had an oxygen tank and he just kind of held my boob, because that was in the script. He was supposed to be like, ‘The power of Christ compels you.’ I just remember being like, ‘Ah, this is the surrealism that André Breton, Salvador Dali were talking about.’
“I had Brando with the earpiece and the hand on the boob, and the makeup, and ‘The power of Christ compels you,’ and not to curse, but, ‘Your mother sucks cocks in hell,’ and so on,” Lyonne continued, recalling how “chatty” Brando was on set. “This was all happening at once, and I remember like, ‘You know, showbiz is all right.’ In that moment, showbiz was A-okay.”
Brando died in July 2004, aged 80. His previous credits include Last Tango in Paris, A Streetcar Named Desire, Apocalypse Now, and On the Waterfront, which landed him his first Academy Award in 1955.
Scary Movie 2 is streaming now on Netflix UK. In the US, it’s available to rent on Amazon Prime Video, Google Play, Apple TV Plus and more. If you don’t fancy seeing James Woods fill in for Brando, though, you can check out our list of the best Netflix movies to watch right now.