As the epic saga of a crime family that spans most of a century, the Godfather trilogy inevitably portrays many of its characters at various stages of their lives. The movie somehow fashions coherent portrayals of some of the most iconic figures in American cinema out of multiple performances by different actors. The convincing way in which The Godfather Part II renders its prequel narrative, in particular, provides a breathtakingly authentic backdrop to the events of the first movie.
The performance of Robert De Niro as a 30-year-old Vito Corleone in The Godfather Part II is so in keeping with Marlon Brando’s version of the character in the first movie that Don Corleone became the first acting part to win two Oscars. Yet Vito isn’t the only Corleone to have been played by more than one actor in the Godfather trilogy. Four of his relatives also provided significant roles for multiple actors in the movie saga, as well as five of his gangster associates. Overall, 10 Godfather parts have been credited in some form to at least two actors.
10. Vito Corleone
Marlon Brando, Oreste Baldini & Robert De Niro
Although Marlon Brando only appeared in one Godfather movie, his performance as Vito Corleone remains perhaps the most iconic in the history of the crime genre. Brando’s portrayal was quite something for Robert De Niro to live up to in The Godfather’s first sequel, but he wasn’t the only one.
As well as De Niro, 12-year-old Italian actor Oreste Baldini played the young Vito Corleone, who was known by the surname Andolini during most of his childhood, in The Godfather Part II. Baldini’s scenes include some of the most challenging for any actor in the movie, such as the murder of Andolini’s mother in Sicily and his arrival to New York’s Ellis Island on a boat.
9. Carmela Corleone
Morgana King & Francesca De Sapio
Alongside De Niro, Francesca De Sapio played the younger version of Corleone family matriarch Carmela, in what was arguably a more significant role than the older version of Carmela played by Morgana King. De Sapio depicts Carmela raising each of the Corleone children from their earliest years, including a moving scene in which she and a nurse treat a baby Fredo Corleone for a high fever while Vito watches empathetically.
In addition to the two actors who played Carmela Corleone in credited roles, she’s also played by Italia Coppola, the mother of The Godfather’s writer-director Francis Ford Coppola. During the open-casket wake scene following Carmela’s death in The Godfather Part II, it’s Italia Coppola who plays her dead body.
8. Sonny Corleone
James Caan & Roman Coppola
While James Caan will always be synonymous with the role of Vito’s Corleone’s eldest son, Santino “Sonny” Corleone, he wasn’t the only actor to play the character. Sonny as a young child was portrayed in The Godfather Part II by Francis Ford Coppola’s younger son, Roman.
Roman Coppola is now a celebrated filmmaker in his own right, having collaborated with Wes Anderson on several of his best movies, including Moonrise Kingdom and Isle of Dogs. Nevertheless, his introduction to the cinema industry came in the form of bit-part roles in his father’s movies, beginning with his portrayal of a baby in the 1966 comedy You’re a Big Boy Now.
7. Michael Corleone
Al Pacino & Louis Marino
Al Pacino is one of the few actors who starred in all three movies of the Godfather trilogy. In fact, he’s the only actor to have played a leading role in each of the three movies, since the saga is ultimately the story of how his character, Michael Corleone, transforms from family outsider to mob kingpin to tyrannical villain and finally into a victim of the mob. Even so, Pacino isn’t the only actor to play Michael Corleone in the Godfather movies.
In a performance that initially went uncredited, Louis Marino plays an infant Michael Corleone in The Godfather Part II. Most famously, an image that the older Michael recalls at the end of the movie, having ostracized his entire family, shows Vito holding his son as a boy while the two of them wave goodbye to their Sicilian relatives from the window of a train.
6. Salvatore Tessio
Abe Vigoda & John Aprea
Salvatore Tessio is one of Vito Corleone’s closest childhood friends and confidantes, which makes it all the more galling when he betrays the Corleone family at the end of the first movie. We don’t see how Tessio dies in The Godfather, but we do see how he got to know Vito in its sequel, as the pair of them become small-time criminals on the streets of New York’s Little Italy during their teenage years.
John Aprea’s portrayal of the young Tessio in The Godfather Part II is arguably even more important to the story of the Corleone crime family.
Even though Abe Vigoda’s performance as Tessio in The Godfather is more famous, John Aprea’s portrayal of the young Tessio in The Godfather Part II is arguably even more important to the story of the Corleone crime family. It’s Vigoda who we see playing the role onscreen last, however, in a cameo appearance at the end of The Godfather’s sequel.
5. Peter Clemenza
Richard Castellano & Bruno Kirby
Along with Salvatore Tessio, Peter Clemenza assumes the role of one of Vito Corleone’s two caporegimes in The Godfather. Clemenza was written out of The Godfather Part II’s contemporary narrative because actor Richard Castellano refused to return for the movie over a contractual disagreement.
Nevertheless, the character does feature in the film, within the prequel narrative about Vito Corleone’s rise through the ranks of New York’s criminal underworld. The young Clemenza is played by Bruno Kirby, as part of a teenage gang formed by Vito and his young friend, Genco Abbandando.
4. Anthony Corleone
Anthony Gounaris, James Gounaris & Franc D’Ambrosio
Anthony Corleone is one of just three characters in the Godfather trilogy to have been played by more than two different actors. Michael Corleone’s son only really plays a major role in The Godfather Part III, in which he abandons his father’s crime business to become an opera singer.
Anthony does appear in the first two Godfather movies, however, first as an infant and then as an older child. The character was actually portrayed as a child by two brothers, with Anthony Gounaris playing him in The Godfather and his older brother James Gounaris playing him in The Godfather Part II.
3. Don Tommasino
Corrado Gaipa, Mario Cotone & Vittorio Duse
Don Tommasino may only be a minor character in The Godfather and its sequels, but he’s distinguished by being the only mobster other than Michael Corleone and Al Neri to appear in all three movies at three different ages. Tommasino is an old friend of the Corleone family whose relationship goes back to his hand in Vito’s assassination of Don Ciccio in Sicily. He then becomes the local mafia boss of the town of Corleone, and later hosts Michael Corleone while he’s in exile from the United States in The Godfather.
Across the timelines of Vito and Michael Corleone in the Godfather trilogy, we see Don Tommasino played by three different actors. When he welcomes Michael to Corleone in The Godfather, and informs him of his first wife’s death by a car bomb, the middle-aged Tommasino is played by Corrado Gaipa. The younger version who helps Vito Corleone kill Ciccio in The Godfather Part II is played by Mario Cotone. Finally, the older Tommasino who gets killed off himself in The Godfather Part III is portrayed by Vittorio Duse.
2. Hyman Roth
Lee Strasberg & John Megna (In A Deleted Scene)
According to the final cut of the movies, legendary Godfather villain Hyman Roth is played by one actor alone in The Godfather Part II. Lee Strasberg’s performance as Michael Corleone’s nemesis in the drug trade is as slippery as it is wonderfully subtle.
Still, for those who consider scenes removed from the trilogy’s theatrical releases as part of the Godfather canon, there was a second actor who played a young Hyman Roth. A short scene in which Peter Clemenza found Roth on the street and brought him to Vito Corleone was cut from The Godfather Part II, but it explains how the Corleone family introduced Roth to organized crime and gave him his name.
1. Genco Abbandando
Franco Corsaro (In A Deleted Scene) & Frank Sivero
Genco Abbandando is one of the most important characters never to appear in The Godfather. Vito Corleone’s original consigliere, Genco’s only scene in the first Godfather movie was deleted, meaning that we only really see the younger version of the character played by Frank Sivero in The Godfather Part II.
Franco Corsaro’s deleted scene is a powerful one, however, which shows Vito Corleone comforting his old friend on his deathbed, before his last breath passes through his lips. Genco demonstrates the extent of Vito’s power in The Godfather by asking him to “pull a few strings” with God for him. It’s understandable why this scene was cut, as it’s superfluous to the plot of the movie, but it’s a brilliant insight into Vito’s oldest friendship, nonetheless.
