I like, for instance, ‘Serpico.’ I enjoyed playing Serpico because Frank Serpico was there. He existed. He was a real life person and I could – I could embody him. I could, you know.
AL PACINOI like, for instance, ‘Serpico.’ I enjoyed playing Serpico because Frank Serpico was there. He existed. He was a real life person and I could – I could embody him. I could, you know.
AL PACINOThere was once a great actor named George C. Scott. He was on stage in the Delacourt Theater in Central Park, where they do Shakespeare every summer, and he was playing Shylock in The Merchant of Venice.
AL PACINOIn America most everybody who’s Italian is half Italian. Except me. I’m all Italian. I’m mostly Sicilian, and I have a little bit of Neapolitan in me. You get your full dose with me.
AL PACINOWhat he does with it, that’s something else, but he’s got it all. The talent, the instrument is there, that’s why he has endured.
AL PACINOSo I grew up having a certain relationship to work. It was something that I always wanted.
AL PACINOWhen you’re reading some of the great plays, when you do what I call “taking up with a writer,” something happens.
AL PACINOI always had this thing, when I was younger especially, I didn’t want to do movies that much.
AL PACINOA good warm bath can be one for you, or a whatever.
AL PACINOIt’s very evocative; it’s like a first cut because you hear ‘She walked to the door,’ and you visualize all these things. ‘She opens the door’ . . . because you read the stage directions, too.
AL PACINOActing is hard work. At times, it’s very energizing and enervating.
AL PACINOI hope the perception is that I’m an actor, I never intended to be a movie star.
AL PACINOI had these little babies [my twins] and it gave me something so spectacular, such a feeling – I was so turned on and so excited by them that I wrote a poem.
AL PACINOYou need some insecurity if you’re an actor. It keeps the pot boiling. I haven’t yet started to think about retiring.
AL PACINOThere was a time in my life when being dishonest with women was the natural way to be. I finally said, “Hey, I have to stop this silliness.”
AL PACINOThe play will invariably be different and stronger, and much more fulfilling and richer on all counts. There’s no doubt in my mind about it.
AL PACINOAnybody who cares about what he does takes risks.
AL PACINO