INTERVIEWS (6)
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Barbara Walters Special, TELEVISED INTERVIEW
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AL PACINO: BROADWAY PULLS HIM BACK IN
Keanu Reeves shadowboxes in the hallway three stories below Broadway, beneath Circle in
the Square's underground stage, outside the tiny dressing room where Al Pacino is holding
court. Showbiz types are gushing over Pacino's performance in the Eugene O'Neill drama
Hughie, and Reeves pops through the door every so often to join in. Meanwhile, the target
of all these accolades stands, happily fatigued, wearing a rumpled green linen suit, stage
makeup, and stubble. Though Pacino's visitors are enthusiastic, they respectfully keep to
the doorway: No one penetrates his retreat. And this is a realretreat for Pacino. Why else
would a film actor of this caliber, with a 28-year movie career, seven Academy Award
nominations, one Best Actor Oscar (for 1992's Scent of a Woman), and a $9 million-per-film
asking price, come back to his New York theatrical roots at least once every four years?
Indeed, the two-character, one-act Hughie, which is scheduled to run until Oct. 9 after 11
weeks of previews and performances, seems a little like a metaphor for the star's career
at the moment. Directing himself for the first time on Broadway, Pacino portrays jinxed
gambler Erie Smith, who returns to the hotel where the deceased night clerk, Hughie,
always gave him comfort and confidence. Though Hughie's replacement (Paul Benedict) at
first can't be bothered to pay attention, the two construct the beginnings of a
friendship, and Erie begins to feel hopeful again.
Like Erie, Pacino, 56, is not as lucky as he once was. Although he works constantly, many critics have called his recent characterizations mannered, overwrought, predictable. Time's Richard Corliss wondered, "Is he a failed great actor or a great bad one?" His film choices have often been, to put it charitably, unwise (take last year's Two Bits--please); his biggest hit since Scent of a Woman was last year's Heat, which grossed a relatively modest $67 million.
"Pretty much all the things I find interesting to do for myself come out of the theater," Pacino says earnestly. Why? Pacino rolls his head counterclockwise, briefly considering the ceiling, and talks about depth. The plays are profound, he says, and there is a deep communion between live actors and their audience. "With the theater, you know why you're there. You're not looking up at a big screen and just wanting to get away; you're there to get there...to find out something or have an experience of some kind." He cites the Living Theatre, New York's Off Broadway troupe of the 1960s, as a prime example: "They had that ability to transform your perspective. And that's kind of a religious experience."
WELL SUITED: Does Hughie echo the real-life Pacino? Clearly, Pacino is still a believer in that religion. After being an acolyte of the Living Theatre as a young actor, he was blessed with an Obie, in 1968, and two Tonys, in '69 and '77; he was anointed a high priest when he served as co-artistic director of the Actors Studio from 1982 to 1984. But because of the demands of his film career, in the past 16 years he has appeared on the New York-area stage only a handful of times.
To Pacino, the theater is about trust and experimentation and privacy and flux. "It's like a garden, you know?" he says. "You plant the seed, it doesn't come up right away. Sometimes it takes time." Long runs are enticing, he says, because of the almost infinite possibilities. "I did American Buffalo for four years, and that was one reason I repeated it. Especially interesting is when you've done a part and you've gone off and done a movie and you come back and repeat the role. Something's happened to you, and it will affect the way you do a play you just did a year ago."
A play like Hughie, for example. The short play had some sentimental value for Pacino: He had performed a scene from it in his youth for the Method acting guru Lee Strasberg, according to Circle in the Square founder Theodore Mann. Not until many years later, however, did Pacino see a way to present the piece: When his mentor, Charlie Laughton (not the actor), informally read it aloud to Pacino, he incorporated the usually unspoken thoughts of the night clerk, which are written in the script in italics. The idea of using those thoughts as added dialogue swirled around in Pacino's head for years until, in 1992, he did a six-performance workshop of Hughie at Circle in the Square's downtown theater. That workshop, directed by Mann, held the conceptual seeds of this show: a spare, nonnaturalistic set to highlight the intensely verbal nature of the play; the voiced-over inclusion of the clerk's thoughts. Finally, last year, following six more readings of the play, Pacino agreed to do the show on Broadway. Says Mann, "He was intrigued by it; he'd go away and read something else and then come back again." After Pacino approached Benedict, three weeks of rehearsals in New York and four weeks of previews in New Haven ensued, in addition to the first four "preview" weeks on Broadway--in total, almost three months of preparation for this production alone. Most film shoots are over in less time.
According to Benedict, those months allowed the two actors to deepen their friendship--"we spent a long time telling really bad jokes to each other"--and to work according to Pacino's slow and respectful directorial method. Benedict says: "He has a very subtle approach. For example, we'll rehearse a scene, and he'll say to me, 'It seems to me there might be a flavor of such and such here.' And then--and this is the important part--he'll say, 'Don't do that, I don't want you to do that; it's just something you can put in your head; if it's right, it'll come out at some point.' It's a suggestion, not a command. Very few directors know enough or trust enough to work that way. "
Pacino's passion for the stage has fueled forays into film directing as well. His feature directorial debut will be October's documentary/drama Looking for Richard, which follows the rehearsal and staging of a production of Richard III, a play Pacino has starred in three times. He hopes to make the play accessible so that audiences will be encouraged to see some live Shakespeare. And his next turn behind the camera may be Modi, a screenplay based on Dennis cIntyre's 1979 Off Broadway drama about Italian painter Amedeo odigliani.
Pacino toils over his film projects, too, with intense slowness--which doesn't always pay off. His first involvement with a film made from a play he'd been in was The "Local Stigmatic", which he and Benedict had starred in Off Broadway in 1969; Pacino tinkered with it off and on for more than a decade. (He finally shelved it, unreleased.) Later, the man took three years to film "Richard", ending up with more than 80 hours of raw footage, which he laboriously culled for months. This endless noodling begins to seem a bit obsessive and self-indulgent.
Give him this, though: At least he is willing to pay for his obsessiveness. Pacino bankrolled Richard himself; similarly, he is performing Hughie for a pittance. He laments "the syndrome of the Hit"--he puts his right elbow on the table and clenches a fist in the air--"which is motivated and generated by money.... But once you work the economics out, you can start taking liberties. If you don't get a salary for it, then you're allowed to come and go with it. You're free." One such liberty: He insisted that 100 tickets per performance be discounted to $20 for students and seniors. (Meanwhile, though, the purse strings are still a noose: Though Hughie is sold out nightly, Circle in the Square filed for bankruptcy in August after years spent teetering on the brink.) In the end, all these projects are subsidized by Pacino's film stardom. "Movies allow you to go on the stage," he admits, "because people know you and will come to see you."
Still, over these last decades, fame has made him wary of exploitation and mindful of who's really in control. "As an actor in movies, you are always subject to someone else's interpretation. It's the director; it's the editor. You always feel that kind of a vulnerability, which sometimes is very useful for your performance. But sometimes it's enervating," he muses. "There is a tendency, when we do these things, to censor ourselves because we know somebody else is going to adjust it. I try not to censor myself."
Back in the dressing room, the crowd disperses and Pacino stands there, blinking and waving. He promises to meet his friends for a drink at a nearby bar, his favorite, in 10 minutes. In the corner and on the dressing table, three stories underground, red and purple flowers bloom.
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Time Out New York, October 3-10, 1996 Issue 54
KING OF PAIN
by Patricia Bosworth
A very big thanks to Lori Histand for typing this for all you Al fans out there!
[In Looking for Richard, Al Pacino reconfirms his genius for playing the baddie--but did
you know he also does a mean Streisand? "I relate to characters who are bigger than
life," he explains.]
After three years of filming, Al Pacino brings another one of his trademark heavies to Looking for Richard
Al Pacino is a very busy man. He's currently finishing up a sold-out Broadway run of Eugene O'Neill's Hughie at Circle in the Square, where his bravura performance as two-bit gambler Erie Smith is reminding audiences that this great actor is all too seldom on the New York stage. At the same time, his very personal movie, Looking for Richard (which he directed, produced, and stars in), is ready for release.
The entire project was Pacino's idea. It's a lively, emotional charged collage of scenes from Shakespeare's Richard III preformed by an all-star cast (including Winona Ryder and Alec Baldwin), plus noisy rehearsals, interviews with Shakespearean experts such as John Gielgud and Kevin Kline, and discussions with street people about what Shakespeare's gorgeous language means today.
I meet Al Pacino at his midtown office. He's amazingly, intensely energetic--he can't stop talking, he can't keep still. During our preliminary conversation, he suddenly disappears into another part of his office suite to check up on a new trailer for Richard that is being assembled in the editing room down the hall; then he darts into another office full of ringing phones.
When he strolls back, I notice that his movements--and those loose- flowing lines of his rumpled beige jacket and slacks--give the impression that he's still in character for Hughie.
I remark on this and he admits, "You're probably right. The guy is inhabiting my body."
So saying, he finally sits down opposite me at a big table. Fresh coffee and bottles of iced water are served (Pacino drinks both interchangeably). There's a big bag of licorice drops on the table; he keeps eating them and offering them to me, even though I keep refusing.
TONY: Why did you decide to make a documentary drama about Richard III?
AP: I love Shakespeare. I've always dreamed about communicating what I felt about Shakespeare.
TONY: I read somewhere you actually felt a kinship with the Elizabethan temperment.
AP: Yes, I do feel connected to it in some way; don't ask me how. But I've also been obsessed with the character of Richard for over 20 years. He's one of the greatest villains of all time. I started doing scenes from Richard at the Actors Studio when I was an unknown. Then I played Richard in Boston and on Broadway.
TONY: But the movie is more than just Shakespeare's Richard.
AP: Sure it is. It's about the creative process, and it's about how we actors work on character and how we discover the play. It's about how Shakespeare can be relevant today. Violence was a way of life back then, just as it is now.
TONY: But who will care?
AP: I hope a lot of people will care. Especially kids. I don't want to sound pompous, but I think this film informs and entertains and challenges and gets everybody excited by the beauty of the language. I'm planning to screen it for a high school, as a matter of fact.
TONY: I first saw the film when you screened part of it last year at the New School. What struck me most was how you chose scenes that would give a sense of the story.
AP: Exactly. One of our goals was to convince American audiences to stop being afraid of Shakespeare. Once you really understand what is going on on the play--the drama, the conflicts between the characters--you listen to what the language means. You stop being intimidated and appreciate the play.
TONY: I love the section where Venessa Redgrave tells you about the emotion and sprituality of lambic pentameter. And when Kenneth Branagh talks about how American actors shouldn't be afraid to do Shakespeare.
AP: I liked discussing the history and politics of the period with those Oxford dons--we must have hours on tape.
TONY: You should put the outtakes on a CD-ROM.
AP: That's not a bad idea.
TONY: How did you cast the play?
AP: With my friends, actors I've worked with like Kevin Spacey and Alec Baldwin--we were in Glengarry Glen Ross together--and then a lot of other actors like Estelle Parsons and Harris Yulin, who I've known for years. Michael Hadge, who's coproducer of Richard, is one of my oldest friends; so is [actor-writer] Fred Kimball.
TONY: I especially liked the rehearsal scenes in the movie, where your cast starts offering interpretations of their roles. There's that big emotional outburst from Penelope Allen about her character, Queen Elizabeth.
AP: Yeah. I wanted to demystify the process of acting, but at the same time, I wanted to show how we are very serious about our work.
TONY: Was it your idea to go out on the streets of New York and buttonhole strangers?
AP: [Nods] I knew it might be difficult because I'm shy.
TONY: How did you get that homeless man to be so eloquent?
AP: He was a panhandler; we started asking him about Shakespeare's feelings and suddenly he started rapping about how today we think of words as things--we have no feeling in our words. We say things to each other that we don't mean and if we would only say what we felt--say less and mean more.... Wasn't that terrific?
TONY: Yes. What was the most difficult part of the project?
AP: Juggling everybody's schedules, including my own. We had to wait a year for Alec Baldwin to be available, and we could only get Winona Ryder for one day--we shot the Lady Anne scene in one day. Then there was the problem of shooting it inside St. John the Devine--we could only get the cathedral starting at 8pm, and we shot till 6 in the morning. In between, I was doing City Hall, Frankie and Johnny and Donnie Basco--not in that order. When we shot the last scene in the movie, I was filming Heat with De Niro. So on a Saturday, I think it was, I drove out to this big valley--Simi Valley--an hour out of L.A. An AD had assembled all the actors there. I arrived at 11 in the morning; the rest of the crew had been there since 5am. Everyone was in costume. I got into mine, and the cameras just started rolling, and I did the "My kingdom for a horse" speech, and then I was stabbed by Richmond...and I died. It was wild. But I get a kick out of doing things fast--so much momentum had been built up for three years...
TONY: Do you ever take a vacation?
AP: Filming Richard was my vacation. No stop watches. I didn't worry about product--the important thing was in the doing it.
TONY: You've always been attracted to extreme characters--Scarface, Michael Corleone, Serpico.
AP: But none as evil as Richard. Did you realize that he seduces Lady Anne with his lies, kills his own brother, murders those little boys? And the crazy thing is, Shakespeare gave him a conscience, so he knows exactly what he's doing! He tells the audience right up front with that self-revealing monologue, "Now is the winter of our discontent / made glorious summer by this sun of York..." I relate to characters who are bigger than life and who have an edge, who are mysterious, who change during the course of a movie or a play. Something huge, cataclysmic, happens to them. Audiences often confuse actors with the characters they play. I am not like Michael Corleone in The Godfather or King Richard. But when I explore a role, aspects of myself--hidden things I may not know I possess--rise to the surface, get released.
TONY: What about the brutal Cockney you play in The Local Stigmatic? He is absolutely despicable.
AP: What about him?
TONY: Well, first I have to ask you: Why did you insist that I see the Local Stigmatic before I interviewed you? I realize it's your other personal project--one you've been editing and reediting for 15 to 20 years. It's never been released to the public--you've had showing at Harvard and MoMa. But why do you ask every journalist to see it? Is it some sort of litmus test?
AP: No, it's not--but did you like it?
TONY: I found it extremely unsettling. [In it, Pacino plays a vicious bookie who beats a well-known actor half to death just because he's famous.] Is it a movie about violence for violence's sake? Is it about the dark side of celebrity?
AP: No. I work on a lot of things that are meaningful to me. And I work on them until I understand them.
TONY: You are still working on Stigmatic, reediting.
AP: Yes. There is something missing.
TONY: What?
AP: When I find out, maybe I'll tell you. Look, there is value in repetition, in going over and over something in a piece of work until it becomes clear to you. Jackson Pollock used to paint and paint, and when he completed a painting, he'd study it. And if he understood what he'd done, sometimes he'd destroy the painting.
TONY: Obviously, Stigmatic is very important to you.
AP: Filming Local Stigmatic got me out of a depression. I began working on it right after I did The Godfather, Serpico, Dog Day Afternoon...I was depressed--I felt very isolated.
TONY: You didn't enjoy being famous?
AP: No, I hated it. I was scared of it.
TONY: I heard you used to wear disguises when you went out in public.
AP: I did--beard, dark glasses, funny hats. I drank after I became famous. This went on for quite awhile, and then one day Lee Strasberg said to me, "Darlink, you have to adjust."
TONY: And you did?
AP: I did, eventually. And filming Stigmatic got me out of my depression. So did the readings I'd give at colleges and the workshops I'd organize--anything to get me excited about the work again. Today I don't wear disguises on the street, and I take my daughter to the theater and I walk into restaurants as Al Pacino. But I still don't like being stared at.
TONY: What about the barricades outside Circle in the Square--the police, the crowds?
AP: It's nice people who want to say thank you to me. I appreciate that.
TONY: Is it true you feel your roots are in the theater and not film?
AP: Absolutely. I'm a stage actor--that's how I grow. I'm working on plays all the time. I have a loft where I do readings and workshops with my friends. I have spent entire weekends doing marathon Shakespeare readings. TONY: I saw you do a reading of Strindberg's The Father with Julianne Moore last summer.
AP: I wanted to do that play; then Frank Langella beat me to it.
TONY: What other plays are you planning to do?
AP: If I could, I'd play Hughie all over the United States. I hope to do Iceman Cometh and maybe Long Day's Journey...
TONY: Where's your Oscar for Scent of a Woman, by the way?
AP: Oh, it's around here somewhere.
TONY: I can't get over the fact that you started out as a nightclub comic.
AP: That's right. I wrote comedy routines with a partner and preformed them down in Greenwich Village when I was very young.
TONY: Who's your favorite actor?
AP: I really admire Richard Burton. I loved his voice, his presence. Once I went backstage to meet him after he did that revival of Camelot at Lincoln Center in the early 1980's. I was very nervous. He was charming and suggested we have dinner sometime and asked me for my phone number. I was so flustered, I gave him my autograph.
TONY: I interviewed Burton in a restaurant when he was doing Equus. I'd heard he cultivated his beautiful speaking voice by reciting Hamlet with pebbles in his mouth. When I asked him about it, he told the waiter to bring him a hard-boiled egg. Then he put the egg in his mouth and recited "to be or not to be," and I understood every word perfectly.
AP: Great story.
TONY: What's you next movie?
AP: The Devil's Advocate, with Taylor Hackford directing.
TONY: I hear you play the head of a law firm and your name is Lucifer--is hell the background?
AP: I'm not saying. Let me have some secrets.
TONY: Has there ever been a movie you lost out on?
AP: I can't remember why I didn't do this movie, but I wanted to be in Children of a Lesser God, about the deaf. I had a deaf aunt and when I was growing up in the South Bronx, I used to entertain her by doing imitations of Ray Milland searching for his liquor bottle in The Lost Weekend.
TONY: I hear you are a fabulous mimic?
There is a long pause, and then Pacino bursts into a hilarious imitation of Barbara Streisand, singing, "And we've got nothing to be guilty of / Our love is one in a million." His deep, raspy voice goes tremulous, then strident, as he turns the song into a big number. Although it's only one verse, be begins to sound like a spectacular drag queen imitating Streisand. And he is not singing to me--he is singing to himself--so he doesn't seem to need, or want, my reaction. He finishes and buries his face very briefly in his hands. Then he looks up just as an assistant hurries in to say his next appointment has arrived.
Rising from the table, his beige jacket flowing about him theatrically, Pacino watches as costumes are rolled in on racks and a designer and makeup artist troop in for a meeting.
We say good-bye. As I leave, Al Pacino hands me a licorice candy. "Taste it!" he commands, and then he adds, "Will you please explain to me why I love licorice so much?"
Looking for Richard opened October 11, 1996 in theaters. Today, it is available at your local video retailer.
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TELEVISED INTERVIEW
A BIG thanks to Patti Worley for typing this for all you fans out there!
(BARBARA WALTERS NARRATION) In the case of Al Pacino, I think I just wore him down. We met on two different occassions, over cappucino, to discuss the possibilty of sitting down together. Sound glamorous? Well at first it was work. He felt uncomfortable with the idea of someone asking him almost any question. And I couldn't change, because how else do you do an interview? What did change was that over those coffees we got to know each other. And that made all the difference. He was born Alfredo James Pacino in 1940. His parents divorced when he was 2yrs old. Al was raised by his mother and grandparents in the South Bronx. He had 2 passions, baseball and acting. In 1966 he was accepted by Lee Strasberg's famed Actors Studio in New York. He studied and worked his way up doing off-broadway shows and small TV and movie roles. He often played seedy street types. And eventually, landed the part of Michael Corleone in the Godfather. Two sequals and 2 Oscar nominations later, it is one of the defining roles of his career. Pacino has also been nominated for other fine roles, including his 1973 performance as an undercover cop in 'Serpico'. And his intense "strung out" characterization of a bank robber in 'Dog Day Afternoon'. But, not unfortuniately for the role, he told us, he is most prode of...a Cuban drug-lord in 'Scareface'.
After 'Scareface' however, and indeed for most of the 80's Pacino appeared to be "missing in action". Surfacing only briefly in a box-office bomb, 'Revolution'. Then in 1989 he made a splashy return in the sexy thriller 'Sea of Love'. Pacino was back! And significantly he had returned with a sense of humor readily apparent in his Oscar-nominated turn in 'Dick Tracey'. But when it came to nominations, 7 was his lucky number. Pacino finally won that Oscar for his portrayal of a blind war veteran determined to go out with a bang in 'Scent of a Woman'.
Pacino has never married, but has romanced over the years some very high profile women. Actress Jill Clayburg, Tuesday Weld and Diane Keaton. He's been very secretive about his private life. And, few people know, for example that in 1989 he had a daughter from a brief relationship. Fame is something that Pacino is still struggling with, odd since acting is his life.
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INTERVIEW
BW When you were 8 or 9 in the South Bronx, where kids in your neighborhood were not coming out and doing repertoire...as kids don't. You knew then that you wanted to be an actor?
AL It was something that I just did. It was as though I ...I had the kind of ah...When I was very young my mother took me to the movies, cause she worked, and the only time she get to see the movies and me was when she came home from work. So we would go to the movies. So I was watching films. And...I would act out the parts. I remember, I would come home...this is interesting to think of it now. I'd come home. I'd always make an entrance at night from playing. And I come, usually it was a 'dying' entrance. I'd come in and 'die' all the way to the kitchen and I'd 'die'. And one day we were on a fire escape and I was twirrling around...and I landed on my head. And I got up. And of course my friend was laughing. And he looked blurry to me, and I wondered over to him...he was still laughing, and ah, I guess it was a funny site seeing me fall from the 1st floor on my head, on concrete. I staggered, I am staggering home and guess what? I go in my apartment, and I fall down. Only, I really fell this time, my mother. I had a concussion. They thought I was kidding. I had a concussion...the doctor came.
BW But when you look back...do you look back with a smile?
AL I do.
BW for you a relatively very happy
AL I am very happy it happened, it happened, it's helped me through out my life.
BW What sense?
AL Well I mean relationships, then. I had very close friends growing up.
BW So you weren't what they'd call a loner?
AL No...no I wasn't a loner, No.
BW But when your mother died, when you were in your early 20s was that...I mean it's hard for anyone, was it terribly hard for you?
AL Oh yeh, because my mother was so encouraging to me, and I think that's why I am here. My mother encouraged me. And I realized that later on in life. And, yeh that's what my mother gave me. And I miss...I missed it, that she didn't see me accomplish...even a minor of success would have meant alot to her and my grandfather too, who raised me. He didn't see it.
BW He died when you were 11?
AL Yeh, so the 2 closest people died within a year of each other. I wished...I wished they'd seen it. It would have meant something to me
BW When you did The Godfather, you're 31 years old, you were a stage actor and suddenly this enormous thing. Yeh, But Al when you had that fame and success instead of it being wonderful, it wasn't,those years after. What happened?
AL It's a relative thing, fame. And it works on different people differently. And what happened was interesting. And how it worked on me was...I...I started to, I didn't talk the way I usually talk. And I realized people were receptive to me. And I hadn't earned it. I had done nothing to earn their laughs, or their interest or anything. And it felt kinda cool to just sit there and not have to earn it. And I think that's a trap you can fall into with fame. Because life is people, being with people, interchanging with people, that's what life is. When you're famous, sometimes, that part of you can get cut off. And I'll tell you how. Because, you don't employ the stuff that makes you what you are, because you don't have to. And so, I fell victim to that a little bit. But I am aware of it.
BW You had a whole series of successful films and then for something like 5 years, in the 80s, you didn't make any films. Were you turning down roles, in that time?
AL Yeh, I was.
BW What did you turn down? Wallstreet?
AL I turned down a few films.
BW Wallstreet?
AL Yeh, Wallstreet was one of them. And the thing was, I found that as I just dropped out I was able to find myself missing a little bit more in life. I can't explain it, I just became more involved in things, and you know...if you're gone, if you're not around you start to recede...and people do sort of...
BW people began to forget
AL Yeh, some how I felt freeier. I started rubbing shoulders with people again and getting involved, in a way I remembered years ago. I had a guy say to me, the other day, "you know who you are?"
BW What did you say?
AL I said, ah that's why I act, I don't know. (laughs)
BW Are you sorry you didn't do 'Pretty Woman'?
AL No
BW Are you sorry you didn't do 'Absence of Malice'?
AL No
BW Are you sorry for any film you made?
AL Yeh, sometimes you make a film, and you know, you know when you're making it that you're just making a mistake.
BW Did you want to do Godfather Two?
AL Well no, I don't think I did.
BW Did you want to do 'Godfather 3'?
AL Yeh, I thought it would be interesting to go back and do 3. 2 I didn't want to do. It was right on the heels of 1. And I thought, you know, it's a tough repeat. I tell you the thing is, you..you, ah, sometimes make movies for a lot of different reasons. Places in your life, you never know where you are. You're like in a certain state, you change. Things happen to us all the time. Things are different, now, I do movies mainly for the role.
BW Let's talk alittle bit about what you're doing now, 'Scent of a Woman'. It's a sensational performance.
AL Thank you.
BW It really is. In the role you are a man of tremendous pride and anger. You don't sit like this...(pointing to Al). There's a different way you sit, there's a different way you look. Is it possible for you to look at me as if you're blind and then look at me seeing? Can you show me?
AL You know, I could have shown you easier, I could show you now. I am doing it now.
BW That's right, you're doing it now.
AL I am not focused. I am not seeing you.. But, there it is. It's interesting.
BW It's very strange.
AL Yeh, it does a whole thing to your body. You see, it changes your...your everything, the way everything moves.
BW Your head, everything
AL Yeh
BW How did you become a blind man?
AL Well, it's all mimicry finally, in the end, for an actor. There's a lot of things you do, plus I've played blind before. It's like when you get a part, as a police officer. And the first time you get a part as a police officer you do a lot of different things then you would the 2nd and 3rd & 4th times you played it. Things change. I mean if I was painting this room, if I started painting this room today. And I had to paint this room everyday for a year, the way I would be painting this room today and the way I would be painting in a year is a different painter. It's just practice.
BW Can I ask you questions about your private life without you jumping out of the chair?
AL You know what, my hair might start falling off if you do. Yeh, it's OK.
BW You have a little girl?
AL Yeh
BW 3 years old. To me 3 years old is the most heavenly age.
AL It's the Batman age.
BW It's the Batman age?
AL Yeh
BW What's it like for you to have a child?
AL Ah, well it's, it's...different. It changes, it changes everything. It changes the way you think about things. It changes everything. It's a... I mean, right now, I am thinking about it. What I did this morning. I got a call from my kid this morning. She called me to tell me she was going to go to school today. It changes, ah yeh, the way you think about everything.
BW Are you a good father? Do you think about that?
AL well
BW What it takes to bring up a child
AL Well, I am working on it. Well, I hope that I will be one day. I, I don't know...now. You do what you can.
BW Is she adorable?
AL Yeh...she is
BW It is the 1st time in this whole interview you've broken out in a totally big smile.
AL Well
BW You're not married. Never have been married
AL No...never been married
BW And anyone who interviews you, the few times you have been interviewed, asks the same question. Do you want to get married?
AL Ah
BW You know, as an outside thing, do you think about what it would be like to be married?
AL I don't think about it, ah. Once in awhile, of course, you can't...you come in contact with people talking about themselves getting married and I quess I would like to get married one day. I think I would. But, it would have to be a certain kind of marriage.
BW What kind?
AL Well, it would be, whatever they say, sort of mutual kind of ah agreement of sort. In terms of how we would live, because my lifestyle is one that's erratic and different.. Ah, and I would hope that if I married someone that they'd be aware of that and our lifestyles would be able to mesh.
BW You believe in fidelity?
Al Yeh, I mean if that's what your bond is, then yes, of course.
BW You have been romantically involved with women you've worked with, Diane Keaton of course, in Godfather Two films and so forth. What about, is it easier or harder to love and work and mix the both?
AL I find it harder. When you are with someone you're very close to, you're sensitivity to what's going on with them. And they are with you. So, when you're in a condition where you have to be objective and be a part, and you really need tunnel vision to work, it's difficult. And it did happen to me several times where it was uncomfortable because of that. Some of the freedom goes, for me. But then I know people who just...love it.
BW They want to work together
AL It feeds them...Not me.
BW Two of your leading ladies, who are very good-looking women Ellen Barkin and Michelle Pfieffer, who are both very fond of you say that you have a terrible time doing love scenes. Because it's hard for you to do love scenes if you're not...in love. You can't 'fake it'. You can't fake a love scene.
AL Well, the idea of the love scene it's all about how the love scene, for me anyway, the love scene in Sea of Love is constructed a certain way. It's choreographed. And it's built a certain way, because it's about furthering the story. It's about how it fits in the story. How it ties in emotionally. And in 'Frankie and Johnny', it was about his 'letting go'. The scene was significant. It had a certain significance. So then you walk, ah, straight ahead. Then you do it, you know, you're undectable when you do it, it's...it's not, not what it appears to be. And ah, you know it's not really unpleasant kissing Michelle Phieffer.
BW It isn't exactly torture. Kissing Michelle Pfieffer is not exactly one of the hardest things you've ever done?
AL No, no it's not
BW You'll go on the record as saying that?
AL Yes
BW Are you in love now? You don't have to answer, but it would be
nice. AL If, if I was in love and if I am in love, I really...
BW would not discuss it
AL No, I wouldn't
BW Do you think people confuse you with your roles?
AL Ah, yeh I think that happens
BW What do they think you are?
AL Ah, boy! I couldn't even guess...I just couldn't even guess...cause I
BW Dark
AL Yeh, that I am
BW I don't just mean dark, dark hair. Dark, mysterious
AL Well, you know, I guess when you're an actor you try, at least I do anyway, I try to have the personality stay out of the way of the character I am playing, so the performance can live on it's own, hopefully, and not be interferred with by my personality.
BW Let's go back to this whole business of fame. You live in New York, you don't live in Hollywood
AL Yeh
BW You live a private life
AL Yeh
BW Relatively, I mean. You're not at openings and things and stuff...we don't see you around. If you are a successful actor, you become famous, right? Otherwise, you're not a successful actor? In today's terms.
AL Yeh, well you know, fame is relative too. You know, some people are famous, are not actors. Some people are famous enough because they did something, are successful at something.
BW What I am getting at..
AL Fame is different than success
BW Fame is different than success. But fame is a by-product of the success. And, it's hard to be successful and then reject the fame.
AL Oh no...you can't reject the fame. I accept the fame, I really do. I have....I have been accepting it now for years. I had a little trouble, earlier on accepting it, but not now.
BW What are the cliches about you? What are the things you read or hear. The words that I hear that describe you, that you read...dark, broody, introspective
AL Oh...that's right, cliches they are. Of course I am not that. I mean, the best way, I think,...the best way would be to have someone who's known me for 30-40 years talk about me. I think that would be, I mean, I would be interested in that, because I would say, "I wonder what they see"? I think that's how you would find out. Someone who really knows me...seen all these facets in me. I am sort of, not, I am doing things, so I don't know.
BW Do you have a philosphy by which you live or direct your...
AL My philosphy is "Man's a little bit better than his reputation and a little bit worse".
BW Do you have a fantasy?
AL Yes, having my own talk show. (laughs)
BW Have your own talk show? Ok, I'll tell you my fantasy. In 'Scent of a Woman', you get up and you do the most wonderful Tango. It just...
AL Dancing's great. I used to love to dance.
BW Do you still? Do you like to dance? Now, wait a second, if I can figure out how this thing goes (has a tape recorder..playing tango music)
**Barbara and Al dance the Tango!**
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(BW) I think we imagine actors, like Al Pacino, as having a unique gift that's something akin to a magician pulling a rabbit out of a hat. We assume that he gets the part of a cop or a blind man and somehow his instinct takes over, the magic kicks in. And, he becomes that person. So, how nice it was to hear Al Pacino say that his secret was PRACTICE. Just doing it over and over again. While audiences around the world sit in dark movie theaters and supply their own magic.
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