"I thought somebody had said, ‘Why don’t you talk about your experiences, some of the things that you feel?’ For me, I always feel that I have to say this because it’s really true," said Al Pacino. "I don’t know anything about acting. That’s how I start off every role, and I really believe that. But what I have learned I don’t even know if it applies to me today in this thing, but there’s something about it that I sort of would like to share or talk about. I’ve never done that. I did go on tour. Looking for Richard, anyone who’s seen that, that’s on the DVD, is a kind of a tool by learning you, in a way, can teach. That’s what Looking for Richard really is is someone trying to find out about things and in doing so, you go along with that. I like to talk about things I’ve done and experienced. I like when you’ve been through the experiences and you relate to it. Just something as simple as the difference between theater and film. You hear it all that time, but I think here I try to articulate it a little more, get a little closer to at least how I feel.”
Question from an Audience Member: 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?
“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.”
It was never in the script?
“No. Nor was Attica in the script in Dog Days. I guess that’s the fun thing about all of this. When they land, it’s wonderful. A lot of them don’t land though (laughing).”
Every time you come to a role you bring a certain actor’s humility to it. After all these years and decades, how does that affect your ego?
“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 for instance when you have the real person that you’re playing - for instance, just to give you an example – 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 (laughing). 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.’ (Laughing) So you know it’s sort of osmosis.”
Can you talk about your collaboration with directors and things you appreciate and what aggravates you?
“Yeah, sure. I think directors… (Lots of laughing) You got to have them, you know? They really make a difference in… You know the director, you get a sense that there’s all kinds. There’s the kind of director – Francis Coppola – ‘What do you want to do?’ He [rolls his eyes]. ‘Francis, you know what you want me to do. Just tell me.’ He says, ‘No, what do you think we should do?’ And that’s how he works. He’s quite brilliant, what he does.
Sidney Lumet says, ‘Go here. Go there. Do this. Do that.’ He directs you and it’s amazing how inspiring it is. And he rehearses, Lumet. Rehearses like three weeks like a play, four weeks. He sort of knows where he wants you to go in rehearsal. I would keep saying to him, ‘Do I have to do it again?’ ‘Do it again. Do it again. Do it again.’ Because what happens in movies is that you shoot out of context. You’re shooting last scenes first and stuff, so Sidney gets you going all the time so that your body starts to learn where it is in the first scene and where you are in the middle of the picture and where you are at the end, in case you have to shoot the end the first day of shooting. That happens a lot. You never know where you are.
I did that with Godfather 1 myself. I spent countless hours trying to figure out where Michael Corleone goes, how he develops, and trying to figure it out what is he like. I spent a lot of time doing that. Private time, just thinking about it. I remember that period more than anything else. I don't know why, because I thought it was a very difficult character to portray. I thought he was a great character, of course, and in the book… When they told me I had the role, I thought, ‘How am I going to do this? This is the hardest part that I have.’ And it was because he’s kind of this almost nonentity. Michael is the kind of person that's hovering around. In the book, you get the narrative of course, so you know what's going on but [I did the scenes and some things] come out of nowhere and become, ultimately, an enigma. At the end of that movie, you don't know who he is. That's what we try to create, so you've got to start from somewhere. It's almost like a painting."
