Francis Ford Coppola Instagram – Paul Muni is arguably the greatest actor of modern times, and as Marlon Brando said, his own inspiration for what acting really was. Muni (who came from the Yiddish Theater) in a series of remarkable film portrayals, played the Italian gangster in Scarface, the French chemist Louis Pasteur, the Mexican Indian President Benito Juárez, and French novelist Emile Zola. If there were a rule that specific people couldn’t play certain roles, the greatest performances in the cinema would never have happened.