Al Pacino Is Still Going Big - The New York Times
Length: • 18 mins
Annotated by David Kanigan
The Interview
The Interview
Credit: Philip Montgomery for The New York Times
Al Pacino has been one of the world’s greatest, most influential actors for more than 50 years. He’s audacious. He’s outrageous. He’s Al Pacino, and I’m pretty sure you know what that entails.
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So I’d like to talk about some aspects of him that merit fresh discussion. Did you know, for example, that he is cinema’s greatest-ever swearer? (This is fact, not opinion.) He delights in those words. He lustily chomps on them. This zest for delivering colorful language, I suspect, is a source of the criticism that he has become a scenery-chewer. Which isn’t nearly the whole picture. Fans of his layered, subtle work in “The Godfather” or “Dog Day Afternoon” need to immediately see more recent films like “The Humbling” or “The Insider” or “Manglehorn” to understand his enduring range. But also, the parts of Pacino movies where Pacino goes big are always the best parts of Pacino movies! Did anyone want him to underplay Satan in “The Devil’s Advocate”?
Though he can go small and internal, Pacino’s ability to really emote is one of his singular gifts. That’s why, secretly, the best Pacino is crowd-pleasing Hollywood movie star ’90s Pacino. Given the revolutionary work he did in the ’70s, this is akin to claiming that the key work of a critically acclaimed, groundbreaking band occurred after it went pop. But ’90s Pacino is when his gargantuan skill, volcanic charisma and joyful desire to entertain all coalesced magically.
The first time I ever consciously noticed a Pacino performance was also the first time I ever consciously saw an actor in a movie and thought, That’s good acting. It was 1990, I was only 8 years old and I’d just seen Pacino play the grotesque gangster Big Boy Caprice in “Dick Tracy.” (Don’t scoff. Pacino earned an Oscar nomination for the part.) Hidden under garish makeup and a hunchback, Pacino was kinetic and uninhibited and, most of all, believable in a way that registered to even a child. That lusty emotionality and passionate exuberance — his sense of being truly alive to each moment in his character’s life — is what Pacino brought with such distinction to his movies in that period, which was also the period when I grew from a child to a young man.
Pacino’s engagement with his art was a model for how passionately — and variously — you could engage with the world. He has always been brilliant at playing cops and criminals like Big Boy. But he has also played biblical kings, cockney sociopaths, sharkish salesmen, a short-order cook and a Gucci. He’s done Mamet and Brecht and Shakespeare. (His majestic, tragic Shylock was the best theatrical performance I’ve ever seen.) He has played Phil Spector, Jimmy Hoffa, Jack Kevorkian, Joe Paterno, Roy Cohn and, on two occasions, versions of himself. He did it in the artfully self-reflexive documentary “Looking For Richard,” then in the somewhat-less-artful Adam Sandler vehicle “Jack and Jill.” Has he always been perfect? No. He strives for something riskier and more alive than perfection. Is he always perceptive, free, unmissable? God, yes.
We know his place in the pantheon of actors is secure. But it turns out he loves his fellow performers as much as they love him. After we spoke, which we did over a couple of delightfully rambling sessions this past summer, he sent me a long email riffing (which I believe is his default mode of communication) about actors who have mattered to him. The list included Marlon Brando, Eleonora Duse, Meryl Streep, Barbara Stanwyck, Jack Webb from “Dragnet” and a couple called the Lunts.
It may be worth mentioning here that I have come, over a lifetime of watching Pacino, to identify with him. I had a poster of Pacino from “Scarface” on the wall of my apartment as a young man. That’s a cliché, I’ll admit; I’m far from the only wild-eyed adolescent who saw Tony Montana’s over-the-top defiance as an appropriate response to the stifling world of jobs and responsibilities that was waiting for me. (The fact that Tony is a coke-addled murderer took a bit longer to register.) Decades later, I still have that poster, only it has now migrated to the basement of my family’s house, and the default picture of Pacino in my mind as Tony Montana has been replaced by him as the dashingly bearded, wearily dignified ex-con Carlito Brigante, who’s just trying to do the right thing and go straight, in “Carlito’s Way.” Which, I now realize, is also my idealized mental image of a middle-aged man. I’m certain there are countless others who feel equally attached to Pacino’s work. That’s what happens when you illuminate as much human behavior as he has. And now, with his forthcoming memoir, “Sonny Boy,” which is being published this month, he has illuminated his own. The book is a beautiful trip. So is he. Here’s our conversation.
I saw an interview with you a couple of years ago in which you mentioned that you’d been asked to write a book. You said you didn’t want to because the prospect seemed torturous. What changed? Nothing. I regret it. Who needs to be out and about in this world, putting yourself up as another target? I mean, waking up in the middle of the night, having tremors — you break out in a cold sweat thinking, I shouldn’t have done this. But I was telling the truth. That’s all I know.
So in the book, you write about a quote that’s meaningful to you. It’s from one of the Flying Wallendas, the famous daredevil family. Can you share it? The quote is: “Life is on the wire. The rest is just waiting.”
And for you, acting is the wire? Yep.
Acting is where life is most vibrant and alive. I want to understand why. Because in acting, you get to rehearse, do another take. In real life, you don’t. So why is acting where life happens? Well, because somehow I felt as though my life was saved by acting. Because I knew that I could do something. Look at Buddy Rich, the drummer. My god. Three years old he was on those drums. I was at Carnegie Hall listening to him at a Frank Sinatra concert. He went on before Frank. I said, “I don’t want to hear a drummer, I want to hear Frank,” you know? A drum solo? And it was one of those great moments in my life! Because when he was finished and he took his two sticks — he just left you with the silence. And everyone in that house, I mean everyone, stood up and started screaming! I found myself screaming! So Sinatra comes out afterward, and he looks at the crowd and he says, “See what happens when you stay at a thing?”
And that thing was acting for you? Yeah, and with Buddy Rich, it was the drums, and with Sinatra, it was singing. You see how that matters. You have to have the desire.
There’s a fantastic interview between Marlon Brando and Dick Cavett from the early ’70s. Brando says everyone’s an actor, it’s glorified lying, that’s what it is. What do you make of that? I think it’s glorified telling the truth. What truth you’re going for, I don’t even know. But it’s not lying. It’s finding the truth.
Let me ask about one of your performances. Yeah, please.
I rewatched a ton of stuff. Poor guy.
In “Scent of a Woman,” there’s the big monologue: “If I were the man I was five years ago, I’d take a flamethrower to this place!” You’re giving that speech, and in the space between words we see little microemotions flash across your face. Is that something that you’re in conscious control of? Or are you exuding something in the moment that’s beyond your control? Yep. That’s the one.
It’s the latter? That’s what happens. I have always felt that to free the unconscious, to allow that freedom — my favorite quote of Michelangelo’s: Free me of myself, Lord, that I may please you. And once you get into that freedom, the unconscious goes to work. You know, things happen. I just heard the other day that someone was able to hear the Big Bang. You can hear it! When my son told me, I couldn’t believe it. I felt so great! He says you want to hear it? I say, no, no, no. Just the idea that it’s out there and it happened. We’re real! We exist! This is the greatest thing! I went to bed high just from that. But as far as your question goes — I know I go off on things. Let me tell ya, pal.
An actor was telling me — he attributed this quote to Meryl Streep — that every good script has a scene that makes actors think, How the hell am I gonna do that? What’s a scene where you thought that? I know I’ve had that feeling before: When we get to that, what’s gonna happen?
What about the killing-Sollozzo scene in “The Godfather”? No. That’s easy.
Killing someone? Yeah, you just go there. My friend Charlie [Laughton] told me, “Al, how you gonna go in there and be the don of all these guys, these great actors like [Robert] Duvall and all these people?” I said: “It’s in the script. I tell somebody, ‘You’re out.’ ‘You’re out!’” You can say it a million ways.
Wait, show me “you’re out” in three different ways. No, actors just don’t do that.
You don’t like it when I say, “Act, monkey”? [Laughs.] I say to you: “Interview! Interview! Go on, let me see you interview!”
Tell me about your childhood? What’s your primal heartbreak? I can do it. [Laughs.] I hate to be shown up like that. Where were we, though?
Charlie Laughton. Yeah, Laughton said: When you play a king, everybody treats you as a king. They bow down and kiss the hand. Everybody around you treats you like a king; you don’t act like it. I always felt that in “The Godfather,” somehow, the part will tell us.
In the book you say directors have insulted you throughout your life. What’s an example? What was his name? The guy that directed the great Mozart film, “Amadeus”?
Miloš Forman. Miloš Forman! He’s so great. I’m having dinner with him, and he came out and said, “How do you do this [expletive] ‘Scarface’? You do ‘Dog Day Afternoon,’ then you do this ‘Scarface’?” You know who else said it? My favorite, Lumet. Sidney Lumet said “Al, how do you go in there and do that crap?” He was so mad. I kept thinking, I don’t feel that way. I love their passion.
Somebody says, “How do you do that [expletive],” and you say, “I love your passion”? You’re enlightened! Yeah, and thank God merciful that it’s one of the biggest films I’ve ever made.
“Scarface.” It keeps going.
I wonder if, in terms of your acting, that’s a pivotal movie for you. Because “Scarface” was the first time you really went operatic, over the top. If you look at the roles you do after, you’re much more likely to go big. Yeah, I got that reputation. Some of the stuff I did in school, 14, 15 years old, was the best work I ever did. Not the best work. It was the most inspired work. Because I was so in it. That’s why the teacher came and talked to my mom, came to my house to tell her that I should pursue this thing. But what I’m getting at is, “Scarface” was done that way. “Scarface” came from a place that was different. That’s true.
You must get directors who have said to you, thinking about other performances you’ve done, something to the effect of, “Give me more Al Pacino.” What do you think they’re looking for? Go louder. [Laughs.] I couldn’t tell you. Nobody’s ever said that. They did say things to me in the theater, and I had to adjust. One director came up to me once, when I was young, and he says, “The character did this, and then he’s feeling this way here, and he does this.” So I said to him, “You seem to really relate to this person.” He said, “What?” I said, “Maybe you should play him.” Dead silence. I don’t like that kind of talk. A director who’s directing you and is helping you with your part is telling you how to do it? I don’t understand that. Then why did you cast me in the first place?
What’s a great note you got from a director? One of the best notes I ever got was from Lee Strasberg when we were doing “... And Justice for All.” I was doing a scene, and Lee leaned over. He says, “Darling, you’ve got to learn your lines.”
Seems like good advice. Great advice!
This is an offhand line in the book: “There’s the general belief that I’m a cocaine addict or was one.” [Laughs.]
I’d never heard that before. Who thinks you’re a cocaine addict? I don’t know, I assumed it. I heard it somewhere. They’re shocked when they find out I don’t take cocaine. I never took it in my life.
But who’s shocked? Who are these people? I wish I knew. But you know, I have a grapevine over at my house. I’m not the kind of guy who should take coke. Any upper, I don’t need.
Clearly. Also, in a bunch of your movies, there’s an opportunity, usually a monologue at some climactic moment, where you really get to do your thing. In “City Hall” there’s that great speech: “I choose to fight back!” Yes, yes, yes, yes.
Or “Any Given Sunday”: “Inches ... the difference between livin’ and dyin’!” Oh, yeah!
Or “The Devil’s Advocate”: “God ... he’s an absentee landlord!” Oh, my God.
When you see those parts of a script, you must know: I am going to give people what they want. Exactly. That’s what they came for — a lot of people. A lot of people don’t like it. I sometimes go too far. I really think I can do with some taking it down a bit. I really do. It’s a confession.
You’ve done OK. Hey, if it’s ham, as long as it’s not Spam, you know?
I want to ask about money. In the book you write about growing up poor, and also about how, in the 2000s, you lost a bunch because your accountant ripped you off. But even before that, you were spending lustily: three or four hundred thousand dollars a month; your landscaper was getting $400,000 a year. It all made me think, What is this man’s relationship with money? Oh, you don’t want to know. It may be catching. [Laughs.] Down the drain for sure!
Did growing up the way you did, where money was not readily at hand, shape your relationship later on with money? I’m the kind of person that if I don’t understand something very well, I just avoid it. Actually, my father, who I didn’t know really, was an accountant, and a very good one apparently. So he sort of knew. But I moved away from that because I was always into my work or other things that had nothing to do with money. “A fool and his money are soon parted”: That saying was very applicable.
You also write about starting to take roles because they were paying gigs. How do you calibrate how much of yourself to put into a performance in that circumstance? It seems to me it would be impossible or foolhardy to put the same amount of energy and detail into “Righteous Kill” or “88 Minutes” as you did into “Serpico” or “Dog Day Afternoon.” Everything I do, I try to do the best I can in it. People maybe sometimes would scratch their head and say: “What is he doing? Why are you going through all these machinations in order to do this role?” I approach these things like, OK, what can we do with this? And I enjoy the idea — or maybe make myself enjoy the idea — of being in the editing room after you do it to then fix it. Sometimes I would actually even put my own money back into this film I did for money. I would do that in an effort to see if I can get it to mediocre. And I have to say films now are changing because of the streamers.
How so? There’s more work for everybody, but the quality of it has changed a little. Things seem to be a little more rushed. Everything is operating on that kind of — you know, the Charlie Chaplin film? What is that thing? [Pacino is referring to the famous scene in “Modern Times” of Chaplin working in a factory.]
A conveyor belt. A conveyor belt, yeah. And some of those movies, you try to bring them to a level where you are trying to find what’s most interesting and allow it to flourish. That’s what you’re after.
So I was reading Richard Burton’s diaries. Did you ever read those? A little bit I did. I love Richard Burton.
I know you love him. In his diaries, he suggests that he underserved his talent by acting in stuff that was beneath his skills. How did you guard against that? I just look for something that I could relate to and that I would feel inclined to want to play. See, athletes it’s clear. You lose your fastball; you don’t get down to first as quickly. But the actor has other roles they can go to. I’m doing an adaptation of “Lear.” I’m trying to stick to those kinds of things. Because I went through a period of time — other actors have it in my position, too, they do things sometimes for financial reasons but sometimes also because you just don’t want to sit around. You want to find something to keep you busy. I’m sure other actors would say other things about their interpretation of different things they did. Some actors can’t articulate things. I was one of them. Still am, in a way. There’s a thing about articulating what you’re doing — as if you’re being found out. That’s why I didn’t care for interviews much. I thought what they did is expose a part of you.
What changed your mind? I could relate it to Picasso. Picasso, they did this great documentary: He goes and he makes a painting, and you see him make it, and then he takes it and he holds it up beside him, and there’s Picasso and there’s the painting, and it’s like you have two people there. It doesn’t matter because the painting exists! It made me think: Well, if Picasso can do that, wow. I’m this person that you’re seeing now. I’m doing an interview. I’m not this way when I go downstairs. I wouldn’t have any friends! And you care a little less as you get older. I don’t mean to bring that in, but you do.
Has aging been comfortable or uncomfortable? I don’t know what the hell aging is. It seems absurd and crazy. I sometimes think, Why can’t I find some steroids that won’t kill me? I took some when I had bad Covid. [In 2020, Pacino contracted a life-threatening Covid infection.]
You almost died. Yeah. They said my pulse was gone. It was so — you’re here, you’re not. I thought: Wow, you don’t even have your memories. You have nothing. Strange porridge.
Toward the end of the book, there are a couple of moving passages about your youngest son, Roman. He’s 1, 11⁄2? He was less than that when I was musing about him. He’s come into the world a little more now. He’s learning things.
I wondered if some part of you was thinking that you wanted to have your story, in your words, for him. He’s so young now. That’s one of the reasons, of course. And that has been a campaign for me to stick around a little longer if it’s possible.
This is probably more psychoanalysis than you’re interested in: Is it possible that having a child at 83 years old is a reaction to the recognition of your own mortality? Wow, that was something. I have to really think about that. I don’t know. Maybe? I don’t even understand it.
Understand what? When I saw the little baby there and the way he was just — you look at it differently now. You look at it like, what is this? This is so amazing! That’s why I was so excited by hearing the Big Bang. Because I thought, I’m not gonna die! [Laughs.] I don’t mean literally. I mean spiritually. There’s something out there that’s bigger than us! You can’t say “better,” because you don’t really know, but something’s out there going on that’s more than we understand.
If I were to play Al Pacino, what advice would you — In your life or in a movie?
Either. I don’t know. You’re gonna play me?
Yeah. What’s the secret? You should go to some of those mental houses and study some of those people.
I’m thinking about your comment earlier about how you’re not the same guy talking to me as you are when you go downstairs in your house. How is the guy downstairs different? I’m sorry, but I can’t answer a question like that. I’m in the moment, and whatever’s in the moment is who I am. You’re asking me for an impression of what I am. Do you have an impression of what you are?
Oh, yeah, for sure. Really? You objectify yourself? OK. I don’t think about that. Sometimes I even see myself in the mirror and I get a little shocked. I know you’re getting at something, but I’m sorry, I don’t know how to comply.
Oh, no, you don’t need to apologize. You said to me, do you objectify yourself? I said yes. I wonder if that’s the difference between someone who’s an actor and someone who’s not: Someone who’s able to inhabit other personalities has a greater sense of malleability. I actually had that thought. There are some actors who are more or less mimics and others that are pretending to be somebody else, but then you’re not pretending anymore. You absorb it enough times, and you become it. But that requires a certain amount of focus and acumen and time. Everything to me is time. It’s like, you paint your house, and you start painting one of the rooms and then you go and you paint another room and then you paint that room again and by the time you’ve painted about 40 or 50 of them, you’re a different painter.
You’re working on a film adaptation of “King Lear.” You’ve never played Lear before, right? No, I’ve never played it. I’ve stayed away from it forever. Ten years ago I had no interest. Then I started reading it all the time, and I saw it a few times too, and I got to know it. And I got older and some of the things — not that they’re easier, but I understand them more.
How are you understanding Lear? See, I can’t talk to you like that. I understand Lear, but that’s my secret.
I want to go back to your Covid near-death experience. Oh, good! I’d love to revisit that.
Tell me what happened. What happened was, I felt not good — unusually not good. Then I had a fever, and I was getting dehydrated and all that. So I got someone to get me a nurse to hydrate me. I was sitting there in my house, and I was gone. Like that. I didn’t have a pulse. In a matter of minutes they were there — the ambulance in front of my house. I had about six paramedics in that living room, and there were two doctors, and they had these outfits on that looked like they were from outer space or something. It was kind of shocking to open your eyes and see that. Everybody was around me, and they said: “He’s back. He’s here.”
Did that experience have any metaphysical ripples? It actually did. I didn’t see the white light or anything. There’s nothing there. As Hamlet says, “To be or not to be”; “The undiscovered country from whose bourn, no traveler returns.” And he says two words: “no more.” It was no more. You’re gone. I’d never thought about it in my life. But you know actors: It sounds good to say I died once. What is it when there’s no more?
But you have this body of work that people will be going back to. Is that consolation at all? Well, yes, and having children is a consolation. It’s natural, I guess, to have a different view of death as you get older. It’s just the way it is. I didn’t ask for it. Just comes, like a lot of things just come.
I don’t want to linger in morbidity but — I don’t find this morbid, man.
With your youngest son, it’s going to be a while before he’s ready to see some of your best movies. What performance should he watch to see what his old man was capable of? I think he should start off with Adam Sandler’s.
“Jack and Jill.” I think that’s funny. It came at a time in my life that I needed it, because it was after I found out I had no more money. My accountant was in prison, and I needed something quickly. So I took this. There’s this thing I do in that film: They got me doing a Dunkin’ Donuts commercial. You know how many people think I actually made that commercial?
You said you thought your best performances were when you were a kid, because you felt so free. Do you feel free at 84? It depends on the role. It depends on who’s doing it with me. Usually when I make films, I’m not very happy. They can be tedious, but you can go to your camper and do whatever you want. I even get television in there. There’s so many things on YouTube. You’ve got Ibsen, you got Chekhov, you got Strindberg. I even like TikTok when I see it. I saw, like, a 14-year-old girl who was deaf her whole life and they do something with her and she actually starts to hear for the first time! And rescued dogs: You watch the guy go in there and bring this beautiful, sad dog back.
You’re such a softy. I love that stuff!
I want to go all the way back to the beginning. I’ve got the sound of the Big Bang queued up. Ready to hear it? I don’t want to hear it, man. It gets me so stirred up. I’m terrified of it. But I love it so much! It’s there. Something started this. Something started it! That’s the amazing thing about it: I just saw it! I saw the whole opening! Oh, my — I’m going to do Lear like that.
This interview has been edited and condensed from two conversations. Listen to and follow “The Interview” on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, iHeartRadio, Amazon Music or the New York Times Audio app.
Director of photography (video): Zackary Canepari
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