Academy Award winner/acting legend Al Pacino took questions from film students, actors, and the press at a very special event hosted at the 20th Century Fox studio in support of the June 19, 2007 release of The Al Pacino Collection. Those in attendance were treated to a screening of Babblelonia, a retrospective of Pacino’s lengthy career created specifically for the DVD collection. Also included in the DVD set are Pacino’s The Local Stigmatic, Looking For Richard and Chinese Coffee .
Al Pacino fielded questions from the attentive audience for over an hour, providing so much insight into the acting profession and his own career that one member of the crowd was prompted to ask if he’d ever considered teaching. Pacino replied, “I’m not a teacher. Teaching…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.”
Al Pacino Q&A
Question from an Audience Member: Babblelonia starts with the Actors Studio. What was the process before that? Did that start very early on when you decided to become an actor or was there a process before that when you were looking for a school or a place to train?
“Well, the Actors Studio sort of was like in England its equivalent would be RADA. It was a school when I was young it wasn’t a school, it was an institution where you aspired to go to. I mean going to the Actors Studio was kind of a mini achievement for a young actor, especially if you didn’t have any money or anything to support you. So everybody tried out. I remember my friend was 16 years-old and he was a very gifted actor, I went to junior high school with him, he tried out. As I said just before I came in here, the Actors Studio, anybody can try out. You don’t need a union card. They have no age discrimination. Anybody. That’s what’s really one of the high points of the Actors Studio, I think. It gets really high marks from me because of that liberality.
But I was a young actor and I’d heard about the Actors Studio just as a teenager, and I’d acted my whole life. I was in a school plays and stuff, so I don’t know about anything else but acting. It was something I wanted to do, but I really wanted to do it seriously – that happened later on, maybe when I was 20, 21. I really thought there was something here that I really could live through and have a life through. Not necessarily be successful or anything, but just have something I wanted to do. For one thing it was to be involved with the great plays, the great material. Then the Actors Studio was just there. It was there for everybody, and the fact that you could try out and I did. I got a letter that said, “Very nice and all, but come back a little later and we’ll see.” They’re very generous that way. They give you a pat on the back even if they say, “No, we don’t want you.” And then you go and do it again.
And there it is this institution, this place, and if you do get into it you realize not only is it free of charge, not only did I have access to the greatest teachers and some of the great actors of our time in that school and the material, if you were low on your rent they had the James Dean Memorial Fund that you could borrow money from. It just had this kind of largeness to it. And, of course, it’s my alma mater and…I like to beat the drum for the Actors Studio. They have an Actors Studio West out here which Martin Landau and…the name…my god…he’s a wonderful director and he heads it. Anyway, I should know him. I know what he looks like. A lot of good that will do (laughing).”
What kept you going because a lot of times when people say no, people just stop? What kept you going?
“Well, when you think that Geraldine Page auditioned 18 times… You know, the word gets out. You realize the point of the Actors Studio has always been an interesting thing. Lee Strasberg had said to me, “We like to see people who are going to try to…aren’t going to give up the first time. It shows how much they’re interested, if they continue to try and do it.” There’s such a thing as observership at the Actors Studio where young actors - or anyone - can observe the sessions. They call them sessions. Twice a week they have acting sessions. But they have a lot of things.
When I was going there they had a directing unit which Elia Kazan was head of. Harold Clurman, I don’t know if any of you heard of Harold Clurman, but if you know your history, your theater history, you’d know who he is. He used to head the playwright’s unit. There are sessions that meet during the week at different times. They either discuss a play or do a play. So it’s constant activity. It’s swirling all the time. And people even see you there, directors who are working in live theater or TV or something, see an actor and use them after seeing you. So it’s not only a place of developing or trying things out, it’s a place you can be seen. It’s a showcase. It has all of these components and, as I say, you’re a member for life."
