Last month, I took it upon myself to act as an agony uncle for readers who found themselves faced with difficult life choices. Unfortunately, not everyone was pleased with the advice I gave them and I received a couple of complaints. The most notable came from Mr A. Pacino of Los Angeles, who requested a face-to-face meeting to set the record straight regarding his public image. The following is an unedited transcript of an interview I conducted with him at his home in Beverley Hills.
RICHARD: Before we begin, Mr Pacino, I'd just like to take this opportunity to thank your lawyers for arranging this interview today.
PACINO: It's a privilege.
RICHARD: Now you're here to address criticisms about the current state of your career.
PACINO: Zersetzung.
RICHARD: Sorry?
PACINO: Zersetzung. German word. You know what it means? To corrode. To undermine. That's what these critics are doing. They pride in it. Know what they call that?
RICHARD: Schadenfreude.
PACINO: Whatever. Point is, the critics are wrong. My career's as solid as it's ever been. You know why? I adapt. I change. It's a little thing Charles Dawkins called evolution.
RICHARD: Well, let's go back to the '70s and early '80s when you were really at the height of your acclaim.
PACINO: Please.
RICHARD: You starred in a number of highly regarded films: Dog Day Afternoon, Scarface, Serpico - and, most notably, The Godfather.
PACINO: That movie changed my life. It changed all our lives. People still talk about it. Yesterday I got a call from this guy at the rental store. He said I owe fifty bucks in late fees. You know what it was for? The Godfather. That's how powerful it is. And it was an honour to work with the great Marlon Brando. May God rest upon his soul.
RICHARD: Some people saw it as the baton passing from one great actor to another.
PACINO: Whatever. But it made me big. Real big. And I kept growing. By the time I won the Oscar for playing that blind guy in Scent of a Woman I was like a T-Rex: a big, blind dinosaur.
RICHARD: A Douyouthinkhesaurus?
PACINO: What?
RICHARD: Doesn't matter. Go on.
PACINO: Like I said, I was a dinosaur. And you know what happened to the dinosaurs? They got too big. I didn't want to be like that, so I evolved like they did. They had to. I had to. I became a bird. Not a big bird, like an emu or ostrich, but more emblematic. Like a hawk or an eagle.
RICHARD: A turkey-?
PACINO: Even better.
RICHARD: That was around the time you started focusing on theatre work, wasn't it?
PACINO: I was the proverbial turkey rising from the flames of a smouldering movie career. I learned so much from that experience. I knew nothing about theatre. I thought Ibsen was a kind of refrigerator. But I studied hard. I read all the greats: Shake-a-speare, Volt Hair, Pinto...
RICHARD: Pinto-?
PACINO: The pause guy.
RICHARD: Pinter.
PACINO: Whatever. The guy didn't understand actors. If I wanna pause, I do it in my own time. On my own terms. Sometimes. When it's not. Necessary.
RICHARD: Some people say it was your return to the stage that- Well, let's just say it started to effect your screen performances to the point where they've become, for want of a better word, hammy.
PACINO: When you tread the boards, you've gotta hit the back of the house. In a movie theatre, you're looking at two, maybe three hundred people at a time. That's intimacy. It's like fucking everybody in the auditorium and making them feel like it's one-on-one. In the theatre, you've got a thousand people there, all expecting to be fucked. More people watch a single movie than the whole run of a play. So I thought: Al, why not combine the two great arts? Why not fuck further than you've ever fucked before? So when you watch me in Godfather Part III or Heat, or especially in Devil's Advocate, I want the audience to feel like they've been well and truly screwed by my performance.
RICHARD: You mentioned Heat. That was your second film with Robert De Niro, of course.
PACINO: Right. What happened to that guy? Just kidding! Bobby's done all right. Rocky and Bullwinkle, Showtime, Meet the Parents...
RICHARD: Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, Goodfellas...
PACINO: Whatever. The guy did pretty well for himself. But I said to him when we were shooting Godfather Part II: "Bobby, no one's ever gonna believe you're Italian-American." And no one ever did. He just makes comedies now. Good luck to him.
RICHARD: It's nearly three o'clock now, I know you said you have to leave by five past. I just want to ask very quickly if you've got any projects on the go at the moment.
PACINO: I'm working on two movies right now.
RICHARD: Can you tell us anything about them?
PACINO: I wish I could, Richard. I really wish I could.
RICHARD: In that case, it just leaves me to say thank you, Mr Pacino, for...
PACINO: The first movie's a dramatized version of my stage show, An Evening with Al.
RICHARD: A dramatized version?
PACINO: It's a privilege.
RICHARD: Now you're here to address criticisms about the current state of your career.
PACINO: Zersetzung.
RICHARD: Sorry?
PACINO: Zersetzung. German word. You know what it means? To corrode. To undermine. That's what these critics are doing. They pride in it. Know what they call that?
RICHARD: Schadenfreude.
PACINO: Whatever. Point is, the critics are wrong. My career's as solid as it's ever been. You know why? I adapt. I change. It's a little thing Charles Dawkins called evolution.
RICHARD: Well, let's go back to the '70s and early '80s when you were really at the height of your acclaim.
PACINO: Please.
RICHARD: You starred in a number of highly regarded films: Dog Day Afternoon, Scarface, Serpico - and, most notably, The Godfather.
PACINO: That movie changed my life. It changed all our lives. People still talk about it. Yesterday I got a call from this guy at the rental store. He said I owe fifty bucks in late fees. You know what it was for? The Godfather. That's how powerful it is. And it was an honour to work with the great Marlon Brando. May God rest upon his soul.
RICHARD: Some people saw it as the baton passing from one great actor to another.
PACINO: Whatever. But it made me big. Real big. And I kept growing. By the time I won the Oscar for playing that blind guy in Scent of a Woman I was like a T-Rex: a big, blind dinosaur.
RICHARD: A Douyouthinkhesaurus?
PACINO: What?
RICHARD: Doesn't matter. Go on.
PACINO: Like I said, I was a dinosaur. And you know what happened to the dinosaurs? They got too big. I didn't want to be like that, so I evolved like they did. They had to. I had to. I became a bird. Not a big bird, like an emu or ostrich, but more emblematic. Like a hawk or an eagle.
RICHARD: A turkey-?
PACINO: Even better.
RICHARD: That was around the time you started focusing on theatre work, wasn't it?
PACINO: I was the proverbial turkey rising from the flames of a smouldering movie career. I learned so much from that experience. I knew nothing about theatre. I thought Ibsen was a kind of refrigerator. But I studied hard. I read all the greats: Shake-a-speare, Volt Hair, Pinto...
RICHARD: Pinto-?
PACINO: The pause guy.
RICHARD: Pinter.
PACINO: Whatever. The guy didn't understand actors. If I wanna pause, I do it in my own time. On my own terms. Sometimes. When it's not. Necessary.
RICHARD: Some people say it was your return to the stage that- Well, let's just say it started to effect your screen performances to the point where they've become, for want of a better word, hammy.
PACINO: When you tread the boards, you've gotta hit the back of the house. In a movie theatre, you're looking at two, maybe three hundred people at a time. That's intimacy. It's like fucking everybody in the auditorium and making them feel like it's one-on-one. In the theatre, you've got a thousand people there, all expecting to be fucked. More people watch a single movie than the whole run of a play. So I thought: Al, why not combine the two great arts? Why not fuck further than you've ever fucked before? So when you watch me in Godfather Part III or Heat, or especially in Devil's Advocate, I want the audience to feel like they've been well and truly screwed by my performance.
RICHARD: You mentioned Heat. That was your second film with Robert De Niro, of course.
PACINO: Right. What happened to that guy? Just kidding! Bobby's done all right. Rocky and Bullwinkle, Showtime, Meet the Parents...
RICHARD: Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, Goodfellas...
PACINO: Whatever. The guy did pretty well for himself. But I said to him when we were shooting Godfather Part II: "Bobby, no one's ever gonna believe you're Italian-American." And no one ever did. He just makes comedies now. Good luck to him.
RICHARD: It's nearly three o'clock now, I know you said you have to leave by five past. I just want to ask very quickly if you've got any projects on the go at the moment.
PACINO: I'm working on two movies right now.
RICHARD: Can you tell us anything about them?
PACINO: I wish I could, Richard. I really wish I could.
RICHARD: In that case, it just leaves me to say thank you, Mr Pacino, for...
PACINO: The first movie's a dramatized version of my stage show, An Evening with Al.
RICHARD: A dramatized version?
PACINO: There can be no other kind. But, you know, there's a saying in Hollywood: "you're only as good as your next movie."
RICHARD: Which is-?
PACINO: A personal project. I got the idea when I was in England promoting Insomnia. Like the character in that movie, I couldn't sleep. I had insomnia. So I turned on the TV and there was a documentary about this British guy who runs a convenience store. He was tough, relentless - but he had a good heart. He fed the poor, the loveless, the disadvantaged. This was a movie. Wall Street meets Franz Capra.
RICHARD: Frank Capra.
PACINO: Whatever. Dale Winton's Supermarket Sweep hits movie theatres this fall.
RICHARD: Mr Pacino, thank you for your time.
PACINO: It's a privilege.
