On a bright day overlooking Beverly Hills, Al Pacino remembered a warning from his therapist several years ago. “He said, ‘Al, don’t go to LA!'”
But even at age 84, he continues to adapt to life in Hollywood.
“You have to learn how famous you are,” he said.
Is he there? “What, now? I’m trying my best!” he laughed. “What do you want from me? Actually, I wore a tie to meet you. That’s what famous people do!”
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He’s not just “famous.” He is Al Pacino, who has been nominated for an Oscar nine times, but had not won in seven consecutive years until “Scent of a Woman”. Additionally, he received two Emmy Awards, two Tony Awards, a Kennedy Center Honor, and a Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Film Institute. He has been a leading man and character actor in movies for nearly 55 years.
“I’m old, you know?” he laughed. “When I get my hair done and someone takes a picture of me, all I see is a white fire hydrant! A white fire hydrant! I don’t think I’m gray yet. I’m gray. I want to be that guy on the cover of the book.”
That person on the cover of the book finally tells his story. It’s in his new memoir, Sonny Boy. That’s what his mother Rose called him.
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They lived with Al’s grandparents in a three-room walk-up in the South Bronx. Even when her friends seduce Sonny Boy on the street, Rose holds her back.
Pacino recalled that when his friend asked him out on a school night, “she said, ‘No, no.'” And I was so mad at her that I think she was the one who kept me off drugs. ”
Even though his mother saved his life, another woman changed it. “My eighth-grade teacher, Mrs. Blanche Rothstein, actually came to my apartment and sat down and talked with my grandmother,” he said. “I don’t know what she said, but ultimately she said, ‘You should encourage this boy to do what he does, which is acting. He has to do it. I think that’s what happened.”
Good reviews arrived very early. At age 13, Al’s reaction when a stranger approaches him after a school show and says, “You’re the next Marlon Brando.” “Who is Marlon Brando?”
Pacino dropped out of school at age 16 and immersed himself in the New York theater scene. In order to survive, he took on any job. Twice as a messenger, manager, switchboard operator, and usher, and twice fired.
Pacino said, “I was at this Carnegie Hall location…”
“Is this the ‘Carnegie Hall location’?” Mankiewicz asked. “It’s Carnegie Hall!”
“It’s…Carnegie Hall. I wore this tuxedo and they liked it. You know, I looked relatively good. So these people came, And I’m supposed to seat them.”
“That’s Al’s job as an usher.”
“That’s an usher’s job!” Pacino laughed. “Finally. But I didn’t keep doing it forever. I just didn’t feel like it. I said, ‘Sit anywhere.'” So it’s more up than down. I got a better seat there, and a fist fight broke out and I left right then and there. ”
Thankfully, there was a stage for Pacino, where he made a name for himself and caught the attention of young director Francis Ford Coppola, who cast him in the role of Michael Corleone in The Godfather.
Coppola wanted him, but Pacino pointed out that “no one else wanted him!”
He won the role, but studio executives pressured him to be fired. We saw what Pacino thought and even hoped would be the last time in this movie: Michael fleeing Louis’ restaurant after shooting Sollozzo and Captain McCluskey. He runs outside and jumps into the getaway car, but misses it and falls out.
Pacino believed he had broken his ankle. What does he think? “Thank you, God. I’m getting out of this movie!”
Yes, Al Pacino was relieved. He thought he could get out of The Godfather because he was seriously injured. Thankfully the ankle healed and the child remained in the picture.
A string of hits followed, including “Serpico” and “Dog Day Afternoon,” and the improvisation became a classic movie moment.
“This wonderful AD, assistant director, ran up to me as I was leaving and said, “Say Attica.” I said, “What?” He said, “Say Attica, say Attica.” And the crowd just twitched and they all knew they were right. ”
All the attention and all the success didn’t suit Pacino. He coped by drinking. “Alcohol is a depressant. It literally makes you feel depressed,” he says.
Mankiewicz asked, “How would your life be different if you quit?”
“Well, it got a little worse for a while,” Pacino laughed. “It was really bad. But in the end, thank God, we got through it.”
In his memoir, he speaks openly about his struggle with alcoholism. He also revealed that he almost died from coronavirus. “It’s out of this world,” he said. “So, I was here and it wasn’t. The nurse said my pulse had stopped. Now I don’t think my pulse has stopped.”
“But strictly speaking, it doesn’t really matter whether you were close to death or not. You felt it,” Mankiewicz said.
“I did it. I really did it,” Pacino said. “It was so real. And I couldn’t see any light. I couldn’t see anything at all. There’s a speech in Hamlet where he says, ‘To be or not to be.’ he said. And when you talk about leaving Earth when you die, he says, “No more.” How about that? ”
Al Pacino has a lot of other work these days. He is as busy as ever. “I like to sit on the couch, but I keep working,” he said. “I have six movies, small roles, of course, and they haven’t been released yet.”
And despite that advice from his therapist, he lives in Los Angeles. But he’s not an “LA guy,” he assures us.
“No, I don’t think so,” he laughed. “I still speak English. I speak Hollywood in LA!”
In fact, this is where they make their movies. It’s the perfect place for a man who continues to be himself. The acting profession still experiences the same buzz he felt on the Off-Broadway stage in New York 60 years ago, which he describes as the realization that “I’m never going to do it.” Everything else I found out, it didn’t matter to me what happened to me, whether I succeeded or not. ”
Mankiewicz said, “You write, “Maybe I’ll be able to eat, maybe I won’t be able to eat, maybe I’ll have money, maybe I won’t, maybe I’ll be famous, maybe I’ll win.” “No.” “It doesn’t matter.”
“It didn’t matter,” Pacino said. “That’s freedom. This was where I belonged.”
WEB EXTRA: Watch an extended interview with Al Pacino
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Story produced by Gabriel Falcon. Editor: Steven Tyler.
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