Pacino Personal

BY LAWRENCE GROBEL

He’s still consistently making big-budget movies (next up are 88 Minutes and Ocean’s Thirteen), but this fall Al Pacino is also revealing a more intimate side with the DVD release of a set of films close to his heart, and the debut of Al Pacino in Conversation With Lawrence Grobel, a collection of interviews with the actor.

Al Pacino is in his underwear and sunglasses on a lounge chair by the pool in the backyard of his rented house in the flats of Beverly Hills, with a Pepsi Vanilla and a screenplay about Napoleon next to him. His cell phone rings and he conducts his business…with his agent, a London stage producer, two directors, a few different women, his 16-year-old daughter in New York and his secretary. For a die-hard New Yorker, he is the spitting image of a Hollywood movie star. Make that icon.

Pacino could be the poster man for “66 is the new 40.” He enjoys playing poker and chess, has no trouble quoting Shakespeare, and can almost keep up with his twin 5-year-olds for hours at a time. His most recent film was Two for the Money with Matthew McConaughey and Rene Russo, and his next will be the Jon Avnet-directed thriller 88 Minutes, followed by Ocean’s Thirteen, where he will be the new addition to the cast. Down the line is a possible remake of the classic heist film Rififi for director Harold Becker. He also recently appeared in three plays: Lyle Kessler’s Orphans, August Strindberg’s The Father and Oscar Wilde’s Salome, which he is turning into a film and a documentary.

But the project dearest to him right now is Pacino: An Actor’s Vision, a four-disc DVD box set (debuting October 17) of “personal art films” he’s made over the last 20 years. The Local Stigmatic, directed by David Wheeler from the play by English writer Heathcote Williams, is a two-man tour de force about two Cockney low lifes (Pacino and Paul Guilfoyle) who hang together, talking about dog racing and the corruption of fame. When they see an actor they recognize at a bar, they go to chat with him, and end up beating him up. Chinese Coffee, based on the play by Ira Lewis, is also about two men talking– an author (Pacino), who’s written a novel about the two of them, and a photographer (the late Jerry Orbach), who has serious issues over that novel. Neither of these small films has been released until now. The third film, Looking for Richard, which won a Directors Guild of America Award, is an exploration of meaning in Shakespeare’s Richard III. It includes scenes performed with actors like Winona Ryder, Alec Baldwin and Kevin Spacey, and discussions with John Gielgud, Kenneth Branagh and James Earl Jones. The fourth disc, aptly titled Babbleonia, shows Pacino at the Actors Studio ruminating about acting.

As a collection, these pieces are an enormously revealing glimpse into the mind of a man whose body is turning a dangerously darker shade before my eyes as we talk. They are also a reminder that the star, who last fall received the American Cinematheque Award, was first, and at heart remains, a stage actor whose power on screen derives from respect for the written word and love of live performance.

For an even deeper look into the psyche of the actor/director, there is the new book Al Pacino in Conversation With Lawrence Grobel, a compilation of interviews I conducted with my old friend over the past few decades.

LAWRENCE GROBEL: When you read reviews, do they ever alter your perception of the films you’ve done?

AL PACINO: I usually agree with what critics say about movies. Not about mine of course, I’m too subjective. But in retrospect when I look back at their criticism of my movies, I would agree most of the time.

Q: Scarface took a pounding when it came out.

A: Well, who could figure that one out?

Q: They say you are one of the great actors but, in the words of one writer, that you are “too often perceived as one of Hollywood’s great over-actors, a shameless ham prone to devouring the scenery.” Care to make a case for playing certain characters over-the-top?

A: There’s an old saying: Ham is OK as long as it’s not Spam. It’s a quality many people enjoy, but it can also become tiresome. If I were to do certain roles over again, I’d take some of that stuff down. But when it’s motivated by something real, it’s not over-the-top. The whole view of Scarface was orchestrated that way with Brian [De Palma] and me. The motivation was there. Part of your M.O. is to work out of the unconscious. You’re prone to make outrageous mistakes, but you never know–you could have that moment. If I were worried about overstating, what would I have done in Godfather III when my daughter was shot? It’s the call of the actor and the director to moderate that.

Q: So, a director should let you know if you’re over-the-top?

A: That’s what helped me with Shylock in The Merchant of Venice–Michael Radford did.

Q: Did Jon Avnet give you any advice for 88 Minutes, in which you play a college professor who receives a death threat saying he only has 88 minutes to live?

A: Jon and I worked so closely with trying to find a way to make the story mean something to us. We were trying to justify the events, to give it a rationale. It’s a thriller, and it has to move fast, but it has to have a clear logic to help express the story and make it believable and enjoyable. When you suspend belief, it can be tricky. You can’t have the audience say, “Well, that could never happen.” Jon gave me a piece of direction I took to heart: that my character was haunted by his past. Sometimes a word like that can help an actor. I used that idea in this picture.

Q: What do you expect from Steven Soderbergh for Ocean’s Thirteen?

A: He’s a great director, capable of anything. I’m sure he’ll help me with the characterization.

Q: Did you see the previous two Ocean’s?

A: I saw Ocean’s Eleven and thought it was really good. I didn’t see Ocean’s Twelve.

Q: Is it at all awkward to come into a movie like that, where the cast has been there for two previous films?

A: That’s fun to do. It’s like a guest appearance in a show that’s running. You’re going into a place that has an established reality to it. It’s more adventurous. You’re ahead of the game, since that world has been established already. It makes me feel I’m going into something that’s rolling, that’s already in flight.

Q: Will it be like George Hamilton coming into Godfather III for the first time?

A: George felt great, I was there. I hope I feel as good as George did!

Q: Let’s talk about your DVD collection. What makes the release so special?

A: I’ve tried to turn material that could be viewed as difficult into viable play-films. I use the word “play-films” because it’s that hybrid of a play presentation on film. The early part of my life, which was in theater, made the most impression on me and is what I’m most comfortable with.

Q: How do you distinguish these plays from movies?

A: It’s tricky. You can go through a period of minutes in a movie without any dialogue. In both Stigmatic and Coffee, the word and the image are equal.

Q: You’re not disappointed that these small films aren’t opening as a double feature in theaters?

A: I didn’t want to go through the whole film opening thing. These pictures are not for that kind of consumption. In a way they’re personal art films.

Q: Chinese Coffee got a standing ovation at the Tribeca Film Festival.

A: You can’t often get the audience you want to come out and go see this kind of film. The plays appeared off-off-Broadway, which is different from on or just off-Broadway. But if I didn’t think these films were just as valid as some of the more commercial films I’ve made, I wouldn’t do them.

Q: Were you surprised that Looking for Richard won you a Directors Guild of America Award?

A: Totally. And it also won the ACE [American Cinema Editors] Award. I’d be just as surprised if these two other pictures, The Local Stigmatic and Chinese Coffee, get well received.

Q: Why have you decided to make a film of Salome?

A: Every once in a while–once a decade–something comes along that intrigues me, that allows me to ponder over it and challenges me to try and bring it out. It’s the challenge that delights me. Salome is very difficult to convey on film, but that’s what keeps me going, what keeps my heart pumping, what clears the valves. I enjoy it.

Q: Will it be like Looking for Richard?

A: I’m drawn to that style of movie. However, I think I may have two movies here: Salome, which is the actual movie of the play, and Salomaybe, which is similar in docu-drama style to Looking for Richard. Salomaybe is an interpretation that follows a person trying to make a movie out of a masterpiece like Salome. They’re different subjects, but done in the same time. In other words, trying to make a dollar out of 99 cents.

Q: What is it about Oscar Wilde that captured your imagination?

A: I’m drawn to the struggles he had as an artist. The time he was going through a hundred years ago. There’s a civility in him, a sensitivity, a wonderful largess that I’m drawn to. Salome is his greatest play. It has universal themes, it’s powerful and relevant. It’s about who we are. There’s a gorgeous tapestry of feeling. It’s what we struggle with all the time. And audiences are attentive to it; they get caught in it like it’s a web of life. I’ve felt it on stage–how audiences find their way to it. It’s controversial, like Wilde was, but no one ever leaves the theater. It holds your attention. Not all embrace it, but I hope to serve it, and to serve the performance of Jessica Chastain as Salome. She’s done a great screen performance–I just hope I can put a movie around it that can support what she’s done.

Q: Do you think Dog Day Afternoon was like a forerunner of reality TV?

A: Well, when the pizza boy delivers the pizza and turns around and says, “I’m a star!” that was the first time that kind of recognition vis-a-vis TV and the real world was shown. In a way it was reality TV.

Q: You once said that Cruising was the most controversial movie of your career. Was it also your biggest failure?

A: No, Revolution was the biggest failure. It got me to quit films for four years. Cruising just wasn’t a very good picture, but Revolution has in it stuff that’s very good, so that’s the failure.

Q: Godfather producer Robert Evans said that he didn’t want you, but Brando called him and said that you were a brooder, “and if he’s my son, that’s what you need, because I’m a brooder.” Did you know this?

A: No. I would have enjoyed knowing that. I don’t even know how Brando could have known I’d be a brooder.

Q: How did you feel when Marlon Brando passed away?

A: I felt as though I lost a close relative. Which is interesting, because I really didn’t know him hardly at all. I thought, “How are we going to go on without Marlon?” He was such an icon. Not just for his acting, but because he was able to be who he was in this
environment.

Q: Did you learn anything from him?

A: I was inspired by him. What do you mean by learn? I learned that if you eat that pistachio ice cream that you love, you’re going to get big.

Q: When he died, did you cry?

A: I did. But I wasn’t as close to Marlon as some people I know pretty well, like Sean Penn, Johnny Depp and Warren Beatty. It’s never been my thing to seek out people. Maybe because I’m shy.

Q: Michelle Pfeiffer said that on Scarface, you and she went to dinner and neither of you had anything to say to each other because you were both so shy.

A: Maybe because we didn’t have anything to say to each other. [Laughs] She was great. I didn’t want to get into talking about acting or about the characters because that was what Brian De Palma was doing with her and I didn’t want to interfere. Whereas me and Steven Bauer were inseparable for six months.

Q: One would have expected to see more of Bauer…

A: It’s not just talent–you have to be able to handle your life, and what happens to you. It’s a rollercoaster ride in anybody’s book.

Q: How do you handle it?

A: I can’t think of a way. It’s mostly luck.

Q: Was director Garry Marshall happy you didn’t agree to do Pretty Woman, seeing how successful it was with Richard Gere?

A: Yeah, I probably would have brought the movie down.

Q: You don’t believe that, do you?

A: I do. When I saw the movie, which I thought was terrific, I couldn’t see myself in that part. Richard Gere really did it well. Isn’t that funny? I felt the same way about other movies which were offered to me, like All That Jazz. When I saw Roy Scheider do it I thought, did they get the right guy or what?

Q: You turned down Die Hard. Could you have done that?

A: Die Hard I think I could have done. Except for those great jumps–they would
have had to use my stand-in.

Q: What’s your feeling about the CIA movie you did with Colin Farrell, The Recruit?

A: It was a movie I personally couldn’t follow, but I thought [director] Roger Donaldson did a bang-up job with it. It was not the style of movie that I’m usually in, but a lot of people enjoyed it.

Q: Did you appear in a cameo in the J.Lo/Ben Affleck disaster Gigli as a favor to Marty Brest, who directed you in Scent of a Woman?

A: Not exactly. I wouldn’t have done it if it wasn’t for having a history with Marty, but I felt he wrote some nice stuff and I thought I’d try to do something with the character. I didn’t think I caught any flavor at all. They wanted to increase the part and have me go back for more takes, but I thought it best to let sleeping dogs lie.

Q: Let’s talk for a moment about politics. Warren Beatty recently spoke out attacking California’s governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and there’s speculation that he might run against him. Think he would?

A: Warren’s so mercurial. He’s too much of an artist, I think, to go into politics.

Q: You’re a big fan of Russell Crowe, Sean Penn and Johnny Depp. What about Tom Cruise?

A: Tom Cruise is a movie star, a whole other category. He has tremendous charisma and he’s also a good actor.

Q: You’ve worked with so many younger actors–John Cusack, Keanu Reeves, Russell Crowe, Johnny Depp, Chris O’Donnell, Sean Penn, Colin Farrell, Matthew
McConaughey. Do you ever ask for any of these people?

A: No. They usually come on after me. Some of them inspire me on several levels. Their talent, their personalities, the way their minds work, their commitment, their devotion–I enjoy them so very much.

Q: Are they often nervous around you?

A: Usually they get un-nervous after five minutes, because they see that we’re now dealing with something together.

Q: How satisfying was your last film, Two for the Money with McConaughey and Rene Russo?

A: Matthew’s a great guy, extremely supportive, and he’s wonderful in the role. And Rene Russo is everybody’s dream to look at, to be with, to watch act. She ranks up there with the top three women I’ve worked with.

Q: How many friendships have you had that have come and gone?

A: Too many.

Q: And why do you suspect it happens?

A: Disillusionment. And there’s a tenacity to keeping up with a friendship. But I’m not lacking in friends. I love what Robert Mitchum said about celebrities: They don’t have friends, they have disciples.

Q: I didn’t care for Mitchum when I met him.

A: That’s because he wasn’t nice to you.

Q: I’m glad you’re not like him.

A: If I was, I wouldn’t be talking to you.

Q: And I wouldn’t be asking you to reflect about your life all the time. How do you feel about all the pieces I’ve written about you over the last quarter century, which Simon & Schuster recently published?

A: I’m glad it’s coming out because it doesn’t feel like a gossipy book, it’s got some substance, it’s got a reality to it.

Q: You were nice enough to write a foreword to the book. That’s not something you normally do. Was it hard or easy to write?

A: I’m not a writer. It’s hard for me to write a sentence. So it was difficult. But I like to go into things that are difficult now. I used to shy away from such things, but you forced me into doing it, and I had fun with it.