Some actors are so legendary they don't have to talk about their work. They just let it exist. Al Pacino rarely answers questions about his career, but when it's a truly personal project, he must have more to say. With The Al Pacino Collection coming to DVD on June 19 featuring Chinese Coffee, The Local Stigmatic and Looking for Richard, 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment screened the bonus documentary Babbleonia, a one hour conversation between Pacino and his Actor's Studio teacher. That conversation continued in an open and candid Q&A following the screening.
CraveOnline: In the film you share the story about how the Attica line came about in Dog Day Afternoon. Another one of your very famous lines is the hoo-ah! from Scent of a Woman. Is there a similar story of how that came about?
Al Pacino: I was working with a lieutenant colonel who was teaching me the ways. He would work everyday and teach me how to load and unload a .45 and all the stuff that went with it. He had me get up and do things sometimes, and every time I would do something right, he’d go, “Hoo-ah! Hoo-ah!” I said, “Where do you get that from?” He said, “When we’re on the line and you’re tearing it, you do something and you snap that rifle in the right way… hoo-ah!” And I just started doing it. It’s funny where things come from.
CraveOnline: So the conversation in Babbleonia continued through today, what sort of stories would you have to share about Ocean’s Thirteen?
Al Pacino: Well, I think Ocean’s Thirteen is, like most movies, you don’t have rehearsal time. But that’s understandable. Ocean’s Thirteen is an entertainment. It’s very upfront about what it is, and it has a really funny and engaging group of people. It is a kind of an ensemble so I think that was a lot of fun and different for me, and a lot of fun. I enjoyed it.
CraveOnline: What do you look for in scripts, and has that changed over time?
Al Pacino: Well, you gotta watch out for me. I might not even read a script. I have my very dear, beloved friend Charlie Martin, he's been with me my whole life, he's in this documentary. He reads everything. I don't want to say it, because I don't want to mention names, but I've done a couple of movies without reading them. It wouldn't have mattered if I did either. But it's very hard for me to read screenplays or plays. I don't know why. I read novels. I'll read poetry, but I have a hard time reading scripts. I don't know why. I have a hard time reading plays because I never feel I'm right for anything. I always think, "They should get this one or that one." Me? I mean, my agent can't find me when there's a part, I'm up for a part that they want me for. He can't find me. So I go through that process. But maybe I don't know what to look for except I think over the years, and you don't want to know the movies I've turned down because they'll make you sad.
CraveOnline: Come on.
Al Pacino: I can't do it. It's a policy. They're heartbreaking. Idiot will come to your mind. But I did. But I must say, if I read a script, usually I like all the scripts but I don't want to be in them. I know it sounds glib. I don't mean to but when Charlie says, "I think you should read this" or my agent says, "Really, this is a big offer," say I should read it, so I read about 20 pages.
CraveOnline: Everyone makes mistakes. What was one big mistake you've made on stage or in a movie and how did you move on?
Al Pacino: Well, I make a lot of mistakes and that's just natural. That comes with the territory. It comes with success, it comes with where you get to in your life. I didn't work for four years. I chose not to work. And that was probably I would say the most important time in my career life, my life in theater, was the four years I chose not to work. I mean, I worked. I did little things on my own. I made one of these movies [in the DVD set] but that was all out of [the industry]. I wanted to just read, be able to go back to what it was that got me here in the first place, why I did it in the first place. So it was four years. I started enjoying it. That was the problem. And I got broke. I had to go back. But I always knew that the thing that was good enough is I knew that I was able to go back and offers were coming in. So I didn't want to talk about it to anyone, just a couple of people. This is what I wanted to do so at that time, it was a way of just dealing with yourself, some of the stuff that happens to you when you're out and about. All of us.
CraveOnline: Are you much of an improviser?
Al Pacino: Well, I think that improv is a great tool. I don't think they're an end. They're a means. So where you improvise, for instance, in Sea of Love, we had a tough scene there at one point. It wasn't completely written. There was a writer's strike too at the time. So what we did, and what I have done, I did it in Broadway too, is we get together and we have these improvisations and they're transcribed. And then someone who's able to do this sort of thing, tries to piece together a scene out of it. Construct something. I think that's very purposeful and it's good to do that. After you learn about who you are in a movie, in the play, you get a sense of what the stakes are, what the situations are, where you're at as a character and the environment you're in. To just improvise before you have any tools, all you wind up doing is paraphrasing. When you improvise after you start to get a sense of who you are, I think it's better for you. And I've seen it really work. It's worked for me. You come into the room and you say, "Well, I come into this room." There's lot of things you do in rehearsals. You just start thinking about your thoughts out loud. "Okay, I'm sitting here on this chair. I don't know if I should be using the knife or not using the knife. I'm going to use the knife. I don't like the way my voice sounds but no, I need it." You know, you think and you start talking about it and what happens is your narrative and your self start to come together and you say your first lines.
CraveOnline: In the film, you talk about how on a movie set, people only applaud for a big stunt, but never a great dialogue scene. Did someone at least applaud for the conversation between you and De Niro in Heat?
Al Pacino: Well I’m getting older and I can’t remember. I would like to think they did, but I expect they didn’t. That was totally scripted. That was completely scripted. No rehearsals and I just showed up there and said “Hi Bob.” No, I know him very well. So no, no rehearsals for that.
CraveOnline: You seem so dedicated to theater. What made you decide “I’m going to go and do film”?
Al Pacino: Did I have any choice in that? I’m an actor. You don’t really get to decide “I’m going to go into film.” I was just an actor and I thought films were the greatest and I still do and I thought, “Boy, wouldn’t it be exciting to be in a film. Wow, it would be great to be a big film star.” So, why not? Then I did theater and I loved it and I was sort of happy doing it. I enjoyed it and I wanted to do it and that’s all I thought about. I didn’t think about movies. I have an 18 year old daughter, one of my children is 18 and she made four little movies by the time she was 14 on her own little camcorder. I didn’t even know what a camera looked like. I was in the theater but I got discovered in the theater and I had movie offers because I was on Broadway. I had 11 offers before I made my first picture. I turned them down because they were really crazy. If I had done these movies I don’t know where I would be now, but one has to have a sensor. I think that I was…I’m grateful I had my friend Charlie to help me with that and help me make some decisions about the movies I chose. So early on in my career I made some good choices I thought. They went south after that a bit…
CraveOnline: Are you still learning?
Al Pacino: I am. One wants to keep oneself open to that all the time. I work in movies with younger actors and hearing what they do and what they say, I always learn from them. Absolutely. That’s all part of it, because when you work together, I know actors very well. I’ve known my whole life, actresses too, they have been part of my life so I know them and it is very interesting when you read a script and then I do it all the time, that’s how I read a lot of them. I have help reading out loud. That’s one way to read a script. To hear a bunch of actors and it so great to listen to these actors to talk about what we just read because they are bright. Goosebumps and very intuitive and what you learn about the script afterward. It helped me to decide whether I did a movie or didn’t. The sophistication and knowledge of younger actors and older actors, doesn’t matter. Actors are smart.
CraveOnline: Do you see Babbleonia as your Master Class in acting?
Al Pacino: This is something that I thought actors would relate to at least. I hope that others like directors can relate to it and that is one of the reasons I thought about doing it. I’m not a teacher. If you are in a situation, you have to have a gift for teaching because you have to have a real desire to do it. You have to really want to do it. It has to mean something in order to reach an actor or whoever your student is and get something out of them and get them to reach their potential. It's got to mean something to you and to have someone be inspired by that. That is what real teachers are. They love to teach they love what happens to their students. They have to have confidence in what they are doing. I don’t have confidence in how to talk to an actor. I usually don’t know how to do it and I don’t want to say the wrong thing. You could say the wrong thing to an actor in a vulnerable state and you could hurt them so one has to be careful and certain teachers, I know certain teachers who have hurt people.
CraveOnline: You did such great films with Sidney Lumet. Would you ever work with him again in the future?
Al Pacino: I would love to work with Sydney Lumet, yes I would. For the last 20 years or something, more than that, we just can’t seem to get together for something to do. It is unfortunate really because I really love the guy. It is a funny thing, things change and keep evolving and going on. You know the kinds of scripts you get today aren’t the kind of scripts I got 20 years ago. Not only because of my age. It was different then. Different in there feel and what they are talking about, what they are going for, what they are trying to get to. I came from an era where things were more socio political today we have more television doing that. Movies have moved into another area but they are great, they are even better than they were before. Certainly the acting in films has gotten really, really good.
CraveOnline: Would you be interested in television?
Al Pacino: Television? Well I wouldn’t right now be interested in television simply because I think it goes too fast. Except if something was maybe a play on television then yes or some great television script. I almost did a television script many years ago called The Bunker, the Last Days of Hitler. Abby Mann was the writer and it was a great script. Anthony Hopkins did it. Remember, I don’t get television scripts. They don’t give me television scripts. I would just love television scripts now that you mention it. Why not? You know how the actor is always looking for the part. Television – it doesn’t matter to me. How about a guest spot on ER? I’m ready for that.
CraveOnline: What role did you love doing the most?
Al Pacino: That is really hard to answer because they are like your children and you think about them. Some of the roles you had the most fun doing they turn out to be a real bomb you’ve been in. I’ve got to tell you this because it is a good story in terms of what our life is as actors. I’ll never forget this and neither will you when you hear it. I’m in this play and it opens and I’m backstage and backstage there is this speaker that comes out so you can hear what is going on on stage and when you hear your cue you go on. You get prepared and you go on. So here I am backstage and I hear this guy in his dressing room going, “Yeah! Man! Whoa! Yeah!” so I come around the corner and say “Hey, what’s the matter here?” He says “No, nothing.” And he is reading a newspaper and I say “What do you mean nothing?” He says “Uuuuh.” I said, "Can I see it?" And he goes off and the paper is there and it’s the review. And wow, it was fantastic. It said, “This is the greatest most fantastic …” all of a sudden it gets to “the one exception Al Pacino! If you can tolerate him.” And as I’m reading this I hear my cue. I had to go out and perform. I laughed. I was young enough to laugh. I found it funny, but it hurt, but it was funny, but it hurt, but it was funny. I sort of knew it too. I thought it wasn’t going that well, but I didn’t think I was that bad. I love that story because it shows how we don’t know, we never do, I don’t think I do now.
CraveOnline: When you're Al Pacino, so revered and acclaimed, how do you keep that from going to your head when you do a role?
Al Pacino: You know, you’re always looking for your connection to the part. That’s what you’re looking for, whatever it is. And to find that it’s a quest. It’s a trip you take. You don’t know. It’s like it’s another forest you have to go through. You don’t know where the paths or the roads are. So you’re methodology may be similar because you go to it in a certain way. I like reading it a lot first. But when you have the real person that you’re playing, for instance Serpico, I had the real guy there with me all the time. I was with him all the time. He didn’t want me to be with him all the time. I was following him around. And you know as you go on doing this, you become more well-known and you have more access. People let you in everything. People like to share with you what they do, even if it’s being a short-order cook which I found easy access to that. But there’s nothing like doing the thing that you do in the role. Meaning, if you’re playing a short order cook, start cooking. There’s nothing easier to do for an actor because it’s laid out for you and it has a way of sort of getting into your psyche, your imagination, your unconscious, and then coming out later. You almost can do it by rote and later hope for it to come out. I remember playing a lawyer once. Not The Devil’s Advocate role, another one before that. I remember being in a car with a few friends, driving. A friend was complaining about his contract, about something. I don’t even think he was an actor but he was complaining about his contract and I said, “Let me see that.” So you know it’s sort of osmosis.
