Marlon Brando’s last feature-film role found him starring alongside Robert De Niro and Edward Norton in Frank Oz’s heist thriller The Score, but it very nearly could have been Scary Movie 2.
Scary Movie 2 opened with a spoof on The Exorcist with Natasha Lyonne playing a version of Linda Blair’s character. Two priests played by James Woods and Andy Richter attempt to perform an exorcism on her, but Lyonne told Entertainment Weekly that Marlon Brando originally played Woods’ role.
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. I don’t know what he was thinking, really. I mean, why would he do that.
Natasha Lyonne said that Marlon Brando was “very chatty” on the Scary Movie 2 set and recalled a surreal moment acting alongside the legend while he had his hand on her boob. “He had an oxygen tank and he just kind of held my boob, because that was in the script,” Lyonne said. “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… So, 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 c—s in hell,’ and so on. This was all happening at once, and I remember like, ‘You know, showbiz is all right.’ In that moment, showbiz was A-okay.” Unfortunately, Marlon Brando had to drop out of Scary Movie 2 due to health reasons.
Natasha Lyonne can currently be seen in the second season of Russian Doll, which recently debuted on Netlix. You can check out a review of Russian Doll season 2 from our own Alex Maidy right here.