Over his multiple decade career in television and film, Adam Arkin became one of our most recognized and celebrated actors. He received three Emmy nominations for his work on Northern Exposure, Chicago Hope, and Frasier. His career as an actor soon afforded him the opportunity to step behind the camera. His most recent television directorial work includes The Americans, Masters of Sex, Get Shorty, and Fargo.
His latest work can be seen in Paramount+’s limited series The Offer, which details the tumultuous making of the Oscar-winning 1972 classic The Godfather. Working with director Dexter Fletcher (Bohemian Rhapsody), Arkin’s directorial run kicks off with episode three, and his direction of episode four brings one of the greatest scenes in the limited series: the introduction of Justin Chambers as Marlon Brando. Arkin also directs the series finale which sees the triumphant premiere night of The Godfather and its eventual Academy Award wins.
Here, in an interview with Awards Daily, Adam Arkin discusses the process of partnering with others to create The Offer. He also talks about the influence Coppola’s original film has on scenes within his episodes of The Offer. Additionally, he reveals how he directed the buzzed-about M2arlon Brando introduction scene in which Justin Chambers makes his first appearance as the Oscar-winning actor. Finally, he draws comparisons between The Offer‘s theme of art versus commerce and modern day filmmaking.
On the matter of art versus commerce, Arkin recalled off-camera his opportunity to work on the Coen Brothers’ brilliant A Serious Man:
I had a dream come true and was able to work with the Coen Brothers on a small role in their film A Serious Man. At one point, I looked at how they ran their production and how incredibly smoothly everything ran and the level of organization, the level of shorthand, and the efficiency of their crew. Just their general approach, the ease with which they accomplished everything. I asked them how did you make this happen? You’re able to do, basically, whatever you want to do. They said that they made a very conscious decision in their early success to not do films that were on such a high budget level that they had to answer to people. They carefully crafted their choices to work on a playing field where there would never be money people around telling them that they had to change what they were doing. That was the way they approached that. They didn’t set out to do a $300 million film because they knew they’d have to answer to people if they did that. So, they kept things on a certain scale that allowed them control, which I think is really a functionally adult way of navigating all of that.
The Offer streams exclusively on Paramount+.
