Al Pacino, Robert De Niro and Jack Nicholson have lost the drive that made them great actors, according to film director Francis Ford Coppola.

In an interview with GQ magazine, Coppola - who worked with both Al Pacino and De Niro for his Godfather trilogy - said their huge success had been their undoing.

De Niro and Pacino have so much money their fire has gone he said, before comparing Jack Nicolson to Marlon Brando.

He said they had become lazy, adding ‘[Pacino] will say, ‘Oh, I was raised next to a furnace in New York and I’m never going to go to LA,’ but they all live off the fat of the land’.

Coppola said a new breed of young actors were coming in and taking risks, and putting in great performances as a result.

‘I don’t feel that kind of passion to do a role and be great coming from those guys.’

The director, who has a new film – Youth Without Youth – coming out this year, said: ‘I think if there was a role that De Niro was hungry for, he would come after it. I don’t think Jack would.

‘Jack has money and influence and girls, and I think he’s a little bit like Brando, except Brando went through some tough times.’