Inside the Actors Studio - Al Pacino

[Music] tonight marks another chapter in the story that has been unfolding on our stage for 11 years we are pleased and privileged to be on this splendid stage at the michael schimmel center for the arts of pace university and who could be more appropriate tonight than the guest who will shortly occupy that chair he has received eight academy award nominations for his roles in the godfather serpico the godfather part two dog day afternoon and justice for all dick tracy glenn gary glenn ross and scent of a woman which earned him a best actor oscar he has earned five british academy award nominations and won two british academy awards he has won two italian donatello awards and an emmy for his portrayal of roy cohn in angels in america the director's guild of america has honored him for his direction of looking for richard he has received 14 golden globe nominations and won three golden globe awards as well as the golden globes cecil b demille award for lifetime achievement in empire magazine's top 100 movie stars of all time he stands fourth and in england's channel 4 poll to select the greatest movie star of all time he was voted number one he is one of the few actors who has won acting's triple crown the oscar the tony and the emmy finally of great importance to this series and to this moment he is with ellen burstin and harvey keitel a co-president of the actors studio he is al pacino this is not your first night on this stage well this is where we did our tour we're talk breaks are too the simple fact with which we've begun our discussion instantly introduces one of the central themes of this evening al's unending love affair with the theater we'll be coming back to it throughout elle's visit tonight but for now let's go back to its origin which is to say al's origin where were you born i was born in new york city manhattan what is the name on your birth certificate alfred james i believe yeah wasn't alfredo alfredo what were you called as a child i was nicknamed sunny sunny sunny boy actually it's an al jolson uh song climb upon my knee sunny boy yeah though you're only three sonny boy i used to mimic al jolson as a three-year-old really a three-year-old yes because we used to have uh his records yeah and uh i would um mouth his uh i would pantomime his voice yeah yeah what is your father's name my father's name was salvador and what was his profession he sold insurance and your mother's name was rules quickly tonight we come to the most prominent thread in this tapestry we've been weaving here for 11 years on this stage parental separation and divorce what happened when you were two they were separated yes at that age i believe it was two i remember one point i was three and my mother took me to the movies and i saw my father and i said dada i remember this i can flash right on it as a matter of fact i was talking about it today with my therapist actually and he came up and saw me and we went out and he was dressed in a uniform he was in the army i see so it was very very impressive my father left when i was six my mother and i moved in with her parents where did you go that's what happened i i moved in with my maternal grandmother and grandfather and where did they live south bronx what was your grandfather's name james where did he grow up by the way new york he came here from sicily when he was four but where in sicily was his family oh wow that's really a big secret do you know i will say it because it's i've kept it quiet for so long but he was born in in corleone in corleone you heard it here first did he play an important part in your life the greatest yes why the most important he raised me really did he with my mother yeah and my grandmother i loved him a great deal and i think that's why i'm here today because of him yeah the course the past eleven years it's occurred to me that we ought to have our stage a wall of fame inscribed with the names of the mothers of our guests who have stepped into the breach in the absence of a father and husband does your mother belong on that wall do you think oh my mom was a great uh influence on my life yes great a real encourager in terms of acting too because she was a very avid reader and and uh quite interested in the theater quite interested in films of course did she work she worked yep were you at home a lot alone i was home alone a lot yeah did you live a lot in your imagination when you were a kid yes and of course you know when my mother took me to the movies and we didn't have television and then i'd come home and the next day would enact all the parts of the movie i saw you would so it was a way of both you know dealing with the loneliness and the shyness i also feel um i i i i've always felt the kind of um that i was i was borderline shy actors are funny that way i keep thinking this either either actors are either extrovert or they're introvert have you noticed that we've talked about a lot on this stage people are always surprised when they watch this series at how shy yeah many actors are de niro also authentically shy well i think anyone would be shy in these circumstances for a while i'm going to loosen up we live in hope don't we those films that you saw as a child did they have a big influence on you i imagine they did didn't you do some of the lost weekend oh the last weekend yeah the last weekend's a movie that starred ray milan she won the oscar yeah i didn't know what i was seeing of course but i was taken with the energy of it the excitement he's an alcoholic and he hid the bottle somewhere and he goes into a frantic uh search for it i found that very interesting as a five-year-old and i would perform it my mother was always dragging me out saying somebody show these people last weekend do the last weekend for and i would do the last weekend you know this frantic search and then they'd be laughing and i never understood why they were laughing because it was so but they were looking at a five-year-old so i guess i was very committed you were five you've spoken to making entrances when you came home from grand entrances right i was a little older and i was allowed outside and i would come home every night and perform something i would open the door and until one time i did fall on my head swinging i was on a first floor fire escape which is i mean is becoming very as time goes on is very understandable yeah i fell on my head when i was about nine i see just explaining a lot ken lipper who has been deputy mayor of new york went to school with you didn't they did he described you as a very extroverted kid though was i yeah he said you did things like claiming to be from texas well yeah owning man eating dogs yeah well i i used to yeah i used to like to fabricate and and i enjoyed telling stories part of it was a way to compensate for more sheltered childhood so that when i was led out into the you know the the the rough streets of the south bronx and had to sort of cope with shyness and generally you know wanting to be accepted but i had the greatest of friends and i lived in the greatest of neighborhoods really you've said my mother died before i made it does that mean that you regret she didn't live to see the remarkable things i've had well i i think it would have been very important to her and i think it would have helped her and i think it would have changed her life how economically oh of course that's mainly of course of course we were very poor so on that level alone but on another level to it the idea of being you know recognized in a way that there was something in that i think she would have responded to i like to think that anyway that's also another complicated issue with me and that is what was satisfying to me was to be able to uh to have something that i really cared about doing was vital to me and it was a lifeline it it gave me um hope in a way but success was something else success was always a feeling there was fleeting and that it was uh unusual and that it was scary in a way but uh the idea that i could be in place and and and and execute my s you know or perform and express something if i was lucky enough to get something i could express yeah that was that was good for me what was your first experience with professional theater well i was seeing check off uh the seagull by wandering a troop of players and they were at the place called uh i think it was the elsmere theater it was an old vaudeville house you know sat about 3 000 people and there was about 20 of us in the audience and there was this troop and they were performing the seagull i must have been 14 15. i was stunned by it i was shocked it was transformed and it was over and i was changed by it it changed me and then i went to school i was at performing arts you know in 46th street yes at 46th high school performing arts and i and i was gonna get i went to get a malted milk or a coffee or something and there behind the counter waiting on me was the star of the show the seagull ain't that the way it is right and i looked at that guy and i said man i saw you well he couldn't believe it you know i said i saw you in the seagull and you were so you were great and and you know he said oh thank you thank you it was like it was like meeting a great athlete or something how long were you at the high school performing arts i was only there for two years and why'd you leave it i had to go to work to work yeah where'd you go to work everywhere commentary magazine commentary magazine great yeah great great a lot of wonderful people there great place and uh they were so kind to me and so considerate to me susan sontag was working there yeah not bad i was a switchboard operator for a while i was always i had so much energy when i came to work i didn't just come to work i leaped to work i mean i walked in the office i didn't go to a desk i leaped over desks yeah i had this energy and it was driving everyone nuts but they were really considerate and wonderful to me were you trying to get work as an actor during that time well i was studying with my great friend charlie lawton where was this this was eleven at the herbert berghoff school you've described the production of strindenberg's creditors oh yeah you said it was your breakthrough it was a breakthrough for me because my friend charlie lawton directed it and i found that i could actually be in a play like strindberg's creditors and find that i could somehow experience it and and and and it be a um like personal which is sort of the key to all hopefully for me the key is to find it personally and that in this in this play i could i could express myself that to such a point i couldn't do it in life as much as i could in this as a matter of fact it's so much easier to do it and and much less taxing to do it in your work than to do it in life in life life it's it's it's sort of hell getting upset but on stage you can you can do it because there's a license to do it and it's it's a different kind of thing it's like having a um an instrument that you're playing through so it was a revelation to me and something that i i uh if you want to use the word you could use the word i guess it was inspiring weren't you homeless during that period that was homeless yeah where'd you sleep i stopped on the stage of where i was performing the play did you release yeah it wasn't fun listen these these kids are going to be going through that themselves it's good for them to be here so fitting that we should be on this stage with a co-president of the actors studio and so beautifully fitting that another of the co-presidents of the actor's studio is sitting in the front row may i introduce all of you to ellen burston so you can tell from this at the active studio is a rather special place and all of this brings me to a subject that was at the heart of the evening when ellen was on our stage and that is the actor's studio itself how did you first become aware of the studio's existence well as far back as i can remember that was the uh it was the meta the studio was the the symbol for the quasi revolution in in theater yeah with the nasa quasi well arthur miller tennessee williams kazan and brando of course the great james dean paul newman it was all it was all and it was just all part of of of what you heard i mean as as kids i was i was just a boy i was hearing about anybody could have dishes the doors were open to all of us did you have to audition for the studio of course yeah what did you audition with i was lucky enough to be in two scenes that night and there was such they were diametrically different they were just different characters i don't know if they would have accepted me if they just saw me in the one party so they did accept you they accepted me good moment in your life oh my i mean it was talk about an identity moment and then of course i didn't i got the studio didn't go that was my first thing i didn't go i don't know why i didn't go as afraid to go i mean i would go to the studio and then but i wouldn't go on stage i wouldn't do anything and there would be lee and finally i did a scene there and he pronounced my name for the first time someone pronounced my name right that was very impressive good pacino they always used to say bikini or casino he said pacino and i thought okay that's right why has the studio been so important to you what is it given to you it's a place i believe in and uh because for one it's it's free to actors it's free to directors it's free to writers producers it's a place where people can come and develop themselves in their work away from the spotlight yeah free to exercise and exercise in 1951 lee strasberg began a legendary career as the artistic director of the studio perhaps no teacher with the exception of stanislavski himself has put his stamps so thoroughly on an institution that strasbourg did on the studio can you speak one or two things that he taught you that you use in your work that are important one big thing he says is learn your lines sounds crazy but it's it's very effective [Applause] uh he also taught me something that i don't do enough of and i think it's it's it's a value and i forget it sometimes i wish lee were around to remind me he says sometimes don't go as far as you can go stay well within yourself stay well within yourself absolutely do you use effective memory emotional memory when you work i rarely use it over the years i've developed a way of working which is that's my idea of of acting anyway i think everybody develops their own as they go on and experience things the whole idea of being personal is very important and effective memory really is thinking of something yeah that um brings you to a certain place that's uh helpful for the scene or the play yes it's extremely good to do i think it's really helpful many theatergoers first became aware of al pacino in a play called the indian wants the bronx he won the off-broadway equivalent of the tony the obi for his performance what happened when faye dunaway saw the play she was uh really very very instrumental in anything that happened to me after that play because she uh she saw it and she was being managed by a great manager and producer later on to become a producer which was marty bregman ladies general may i present to you the great film producer marty bregman there was an actor producer relationship that gave us some extraordinary films what does it mean to have a relationship like the one that you had with marty well it really meant everything to me and and and still does he made me stay the course in 1969 l won the tony award as best featured actor in a play called does a tiger wear a necktie and that play led to the first starring role in the film the panic and needle park is a relentless journey into hell it spares us nothing spares the actors nothing what was it like to shoot that phone well it was my first film so i i was very uh uh excited about it it's always new to me i was very disappointed in all the wires around i kept seeing wires everywhere i went machines and stuff so i wasn't used to that and i didn't i hadn't learned yet which is a major thing in in movie making is how to play to the camera what the great movie actors do do i mean they learn what what is known as framing and how to how to have that relationship with the camera which is this was invaluable i was excited by the fact that i was in a movie but i was very impatient with the waiting and all the things that go with it yeah i had a wonderful human being in jerry shatzburg as a director who did i think a really good really fine job on that film finding his way and inventing and you know there's nothing better than when you work on a film and get in with a director and the two of you are sort of yeah um together inventing things you know and it's not this formality that sometimes comes into movies in 1972 one of the landmarks of american film changed a lot of lives including presumably yours was called of course the godfather one of the most frequently told tales in the 11 year history of this series is of movie studio resistance to the casting of an actor who would ultimately become world famous for playing the role according to coppola paramount was dead set against casting you as michael carlioni is that true yes why first of all i was a new type my type uh although dustin hoffman had made such tremendous impact with his great performance in the graduate and then followed by midnight so yeah so it was a kind of at least there was a that that sort of thing was out there but the good news here is that francis and i knew each other from before he came to see me and does the titanware necktie right he wanted me to play this professor in his movie called love story so we spent five or six days together and that was it and it was over so when he got the script of godfather and he called me and he said he wanted me to play michael so i thought he's he's now out of his mind and i i see so i sort of knew that it was so what did i know i knew what the studio know why why why use me in such a you know why would i be that part i mean come on there's so many like wonderful actors out there could do it and they're well known and that this and that even i didn't want me i didn't think he was right actually and then of course paramount felt the same way the reason i was hired in the godfather finally is because they saw eight minutes of panic and needle park that is the reason it was francis francisco was persistent but it was eight minutes from that movie for our students out there how do you prepare a role like michael or any rule what do you start with you get an impression i got an impression from the novel which is very that's what's good sometimes you get an impression from real life characters too that's why you meet them characters you're going to play and you and you get an impression and you and you let the impression of the character sort of live in you michael was a very difficult character in that he starts one way and transitions to another and i did not have the time although i spent countless hours trying to figure it out at that time so what i thought of was to low-key it early on hoping that a character would emerge that surprised you and i thought that was the key to the character in terms of making the impression because you'd say where did he come from where did he come from and there he is all of a sudden how did it happen so it has a kind of enigmatic quality to it is it true [Music] no i guess you're both [Music] [Music] and coriolis some of our guests write thorough road maps of the role scene by seeing even moment by moment they write things in their script do you write things down or is it in your head sometimes i write things down you do sometimes it's something will come to me but what would you write down for example and write down uh question mark for instance like i don't understand that right i have to go back to that and try to understand where it comes from right but i don't walk the script up much i see how much of the work do you leave open and unconsidered in order to leave plenty of room for your self-responding on the set well i believe strongly in in acting from the unconscious that's my my belief i believe that what you hope happens is your unconscious is freed if you're relaxed enough if you're into it enough you trust that part of you to uh uh that's why i believe in in consuming as much as you can that's why i use the impression kind of thing and then allowing and trusting that francis has famously found an improvisation did he encourage it in the godfather films yes but sometimes you need a lot of information to improvise and i wouldn't i wouldn't recommend improvising uh at first i i would say after you get to know the material more and more but i i i like the idea i like the questions i like asking questions and not answering them that's my big thing ask the question why you don't have to answer it why i have a question where have i been where am i going what am i doing here why am i here and all that stuff john goodman when he was with us talked about his experience with you and steve love and he said he's great to work with he can do a take seven different ways is that how it works for you do you change from take to take i would imagine yeah with the style of working that i do i would imagine i i would i would change from yeah according to francis he was so convinced he was going to be replaced during the filming of the godfather and he never had a moment's peace did you have any concerns about being replaced in godfather of course really oh yeah i'm still i'm still wondering why i wasn't i mean i was so sure i was going to be replaced and and i really finally i know it sounds uh but i finally just i just wanted to be replaced i thought what am i doing here this is just not it's not working i i uh i don't feel wanted or it's like weird you just felt you know an actor needs confidence you need a certain amount of feeling people want you there francis said that he devised a strategy to save al and himself do you remember what it was he told us he moved the shooting scene in the restaurant up in the shooting schedule that's right so they would see the dailies of it that's right and the morning after they saw the rushes all the pressure vanished that was brilliant because i was out they were they were they were going to replace me i think by the way i was doing the earliest stuff they didn't think i could do that that i could handle that they wanted to see more of the guy the end result earlier and i kept thinking that was the wrong way to go that was a mistake you didn't want to play results and they wanted results yeah but i thought it would be hurtful to the film really yeah this next question will surprise absolutely no one there are a couple of scenes between you and marlon brando that not to mince words are acting lessons tell us about working with marlin on that film to understand the condition i was in at the time to know what state i was in as a young man feeling unwanted and thinking i was going to go any minute but i i mean the guys were great you know especially jimmy khan and and duval were all such they were so friendly to me and i think tomorrow is one of the reasons i i stayed too i think he wanted me there so um it's just i just love them there are those who think that part two of the godfather's saga is more remarkable than part one was it a very different experience for you and well i think in a way it was more personal to francis i think francis was really expressing something in in part two because in a way part one had the great story and it had the mario puzzle uh tapestry but in part two it allowed francis room to bring in his own life one of the significant differences in part two was the casting of hyman roth yeah who bears resemblance to the florida crime lord meyer lansky who played that part lee strasberg did and whose idea was that well it was really my friend charlie lawton's and mine did you enjoy acting for them i loved acting with him yeah does he live by the rules when he acts no i know also he said look at ellen he's one of us you know he had such a great understanding of that i mean because he loved actors so much he recognized that he was a you know a kind of acting guru whatever but he didn't he just he just put it away and because he had so much experience in the theater was an actor himself at one point and he put all of that away and just was one of us 16 years passed between the filming of godfather 2 and godfather 3. by that time you and diane keaton had brought the relationship between your characters and you as actors to an amazingly high level it's wonderful well you don't you don't have to work so hard again right you're there already it's a given you're working together so one of the most wrenching scenes in part three is michael's confession he confessed to a wonderful italian actor to whom did you confess in that scene ralph alone oh yeah yeah it's a scene that draws very deep emotion i am betrayed my wife gone my son i betrayed myself i killed men [Music] and i ought it meant to be killed go on my son thank you i ordered the death of my brother he injured me i killed my brothers i can learn from myself there's a big question about that idea that michael is looking for redemption it's a big question and this will always be question for me and maybe someday i will talk to francis about it because i wondered whether he was redeemable whether that was what he was made of to want that maybe the audience is didn't want to see michael change and i've often wondered about that i still don't know about it and that was what francis and i were struggling with the film's climax takes place at the opera at a performance of capital realisticana which by no coincidence echoes the theme of the godfather from first frame to last with the killing of michael's daughter the film quite simply becomes operatic michael's scream is initially silent as you shot it were you aware that that was what they were going to do with this no that's just brilliant editing that's great fantastic editing for that kind of editing in films you know i i've stopped worrying about performance in movies because editors are so good and they really understand that they you know and if you trust them they know how to do it for the actors out there who work in movies yeah i know when i first started i mean i would brood you know oh man i didn't what what i wasn't you know i did five takes and they're all one of them only one of them had half you know so you worry about this and that and the problem is when you're when you're watching russia's that's why i don't watch russia's in the movies anymore because when you're watching russia's you're just watching you you know yeah like uh you know there you are with all your shortcomings but in the movie it's just boom you're there just you're on the other actor or something so so it's it's and then you're in the story and you're in the scene so it's totally different so i i i don't put myself today marks the beginning of two important collaborations with marty bregman and director sydney lumet i didn't know from directing i didn't know from movies i just didn't know from anything so i just went with a gut reaction and i felt sydney had the experience and there was something i really liked about him uh he i just felt his energy which was extraordinary he was amazing that what he knew and what he did all of a sudden we're in a movie rehearsing like a play and he wanted to take me right from the start of the movie to the finish of the movie he kept running through the movie right and i didn't want to do it i was tired i said please no no you got to do it you'll thank me one day for this al's next lumet bregman encounter was in a riveting movie called dog day afternoon the godfather in circle brought out his first two academy award nominations this film brought him his third you have a clear affinity for off-beat characters sunny wartsik is one of your most complex and fascinating this is what roger ebert said about sunny one of the most interesting modern movie characters ranking with gene hackman's eavesdropper in the conversation and jack nicholson bobby dupey in five easy pieces how much of him was in the script how much of him did you bring to the table if for some reason in this particular movie uh i didn't want to meet the guy the real guy yeah my instincts were telling me uh there was something that i was into in my in my mind or something to do with them something that i knew about in terms of people i knew and stuff and so i think i found an energy from other things and similar met once said to me he said you know this is this guy's day in the sun it's his day in the sun and i thought that's a key to me and i remember we re-shot the first scene we had done the first scene and i had come to the bank with eyeglasses in the disguise and then i realized no this guy wants to get caught and wants to be seen as who he is he doesn't want to hide and this is about him right and i think that was a key for me and god knows where that other guy came from all i know is when we had to do reshoots one time and i had to go back and do reshoots i couldn't get the character back it's just though the last day of shooting this character just flew out of my head he just was it's channeling isn't it that way some of it maybe when you're lucky it's channeling when you're not lucky it's it's struggling juggling one of my favorite lines in any of your films is when you tell charles journey to kiss you outside on the street do you remember what you said to him kiss me why because when i'm being [ __ ] i like to get kissed what a gorgeous line i wish i wrote that yeah the film has many memorable moments none more memorable for me than sonny dictating his last will and testament but to my mother i ask forgiveness you you don't understand the things i said and did but on me and i'm definitely i want a military funeral and i'm entitled to have one free of charge god god bless you and watch over you till we are joined in the hereafter in 1979 al earned his fifth academy award nomination and we talked about and justice for all with norman jewison norman is a spirited guy and he gave a sort of nice ambience to things who played grandpa sam lee strasberg more fun more fun yeah as i was preparing for tonight it struck me rightly or wrongly that in the absence of your father you've had two very strong parental or at least familial figures lee strasberg and charlie lawton am i putting too fine a point on it no it's true yeah what is your production company called it's called cal and what does chow stand for well once when charlie and i went down and out we said uh uh we thought we would have a moving company and we must have fantasized about having a moving company not about doing films or even having a movie company a moving company meaning you move furniture from one place to another c-h-a-l chal movers so the first time marty bregman said to me um you know you you're making a little money now you're going to have to get incorporated i said fine he said well you need a name it needs a name and chad came out in himself so that's my corporation with a stop at new york circle in the square downtown for 262 celebrated performances of david mammoth's american buffalo al moved on then in 1983 to one of his most vivid film performances as tony montana in the scarface i've read that that 25 years before that you were walking down sunset boulevard you saw the movie you fell in love with it with paul muni yeah i really thought he was one of the greatest actors i'd ever seen and um i called marty bregman i said i i really think that this is a picture this is a movie and marty watched it and then marty turned it into a movie and oliver stone wrote that script and i think that's one of the reasons it's really endured and of course brian de palma you said he saw it as an operatic movie yeah was there a lot of invention on your part yeah there seems to be the combination of both it was in the script i mean the text was magnificent i mean oliver stone cannot help himself when he writes about something he's going to speak about things he's going to address things that are going on in our life and i remember uh stephen bauer the guy who plays um manny in it yeah he and i spent you know i mean we spent months preparing for it and very happy well we we first of all he's cuban so i i i did a lot of work with him it was just a different kind of thing that i've ever done in terms of building a character i'd never quite thought of a character that way from the outside too yeah just starting with the scar and starting right and of course the accent and the body and everything that went with it you know what you're becoming tony you're an immigrant [ __ ] millionaire who can't stop talking about it in the garden honey and bury it and forget about it i work hard for this i want you to know that it's too bad somebody should have given it to you it would have been a nicer person do you know what your problem is what's the cap what is my problem tony you got nothing to do in your life man why don't you get a job or something you know do something be a nurse work with blankets lepers that kind of thing anything beats lying around all day waiting for me to [ __ ] you i'll tell you that don't touch your horn honey you're not that good oh no frank was better huh an intriguing film called sea of love when ellen barkin was in that chair she talked about your limitless appetite for work she called it an acting class did you and she rehearse on your own yeah we even improvised and have seen uh that was that's a good thing in movies by the way if it means anything to anyone if you improvise on a scene and tape it and it's transcribed if you're familiar with the characters and been playing them a while and you do an improvisation on honest on a particular situation and put the two characters in the situation and just improvise it when john goodman was with us he said that he was scared to death i love john sea of love that lovely man i love john the first few times you had to work together in the film he said he was petrified of you do you find that it's a problem for you that actors can come in cowed because you're al pacino you come with the baggage they know you they've seen you and stuff but within minutes after you start talking about things and stuff it it's always always fine one of my favorite al pacino roles hands down is big boy caprice and dick tracy what genius came up with the brilliant idea of casting you in a live action primary colors comic strip only a little guy like warren beatty he's one of the greatest directors i've ever worked with what makes him great you trust him he he he is so intelligent and he's so open and so uh he's so gifted and so committed i mean he was just encouraging me to do all kinds of things with that part you know i mean you did all kinds of things i did you sang you danced you choreographed of course yeah that's right you're a big boycott priest this is how the honoring roger ebert describes al's performance the scene stealer is big boy caprice played by al pacino with such grotesque energy that we seem to have stumbled on a criminal from dickens way i see it and plato agrees with me is that there is what is and then there is what we would like it to be but that's not important what's important is the future it's planning ahead a man without a plan is not a man lychee wait a minute wait i'm having a thought oh yes oh yes i'm gonna have a thought it's coming it's gone rise above the time take that journey that journey into that far away land a land that just waits it waits by the track where the train of destiny must run into the future breaking the shackles of the past forget this forget them our limitations are our shuttles put them behind you forever put them behind you forever test can't you see i love you a lot of that well well yeah i mean the thing was uh i always i often thought what would it be like if you have a character and you and you had to sculpt the character or you do a painting of a character what would it look like so i thought a big boy and i thought well he has a big sort of extremities yes everything was big and and he was just a lot of fun to play you enjoy playing comedy yeah yeah i don't want to say it because it's going to sound so damn pretentious but i started in comedy what a reaction man because because because it's mysterious what do you mean you started well i i did reviews i i did stand up comedy you were a stand-up comic oh yeah where well in the village i had a partner and we did stuff and did reviews i i did things that was i mean it was it was odd but i i enjoyed that and it was a way to deal with you know melancholy or whatever but i i enjoyed doing it you all became melancholy by doing stand-up yeah i did musicals too did you sing i sang too in what musicals i was in the king and i i was offered zord of the greek on broadway not to play zorba but to play the uh young the young guy yeah opposite hershel bernardi how prince i don't mean to boast and then i got to work with robin williams oh i know that that's funny we all know that tell me about working with robin oh it's great i mean working with him is just as a matter of fact he's one of my he's a hero so i always try to be him when i do any any kind of situation i always say i you know i try to be like robin and williams and be funny but the film that you did with robin never worked was not a funny it wasn't funny you see that the one film i do with him is not seriously he's my idol and did you enjoy working with him yeah he's great oh he is he's insomnia sweetheart yeah the two most imitated people in the 11 year history of this series are marlon brando and al pacino and i come in third if you count will ferrell one of the sacred traditions of this series is mimicry because i happen to feel it's a great art no one is immune i'm going to call on another member of the active studio distinguished member of the actors studio uh mr pacino you've already been immortalized by by kevin spacey on saturday night live we all said saw that how did you feel about it did you were you pleased oh funny didn't body at all no can i get a cappuccino we've talked about glenn gary glenrock several times what attracted you to this david mamet i know david and uh i just thought this is a great play and i and i thought to do it on film you know wow mammoth's language is famous for its realism do you by any chance know how many times the f word is uttered in the film glenn gary glenn ross i do no more than scarface though my dad i don't know in in glengarry glen ross it occurs 137 times how many for you 170 for scarface let's hear for scarface okay according to ed harris when he was with us the cast had its own name for the film glenn gary glenross do you remember what it was no they left me out of everything they called it death of a [ __ ] salesman oh no that's funny oh i never heard that when when when jack lemmon was with us only a few months before his death he said about al when al is working as far as he's concerned he's gone al is no longer there he was telling us that ricky roma was there for him just listening as you do in that film for five minutes how important is listening to our acting friends out here this is important is as as being listened to it's just it's i guess it's more important to listen because that will determine your reacting and uh and it keeps you from getting into habits and it keeps you fresh and it keeps you in 1993 al accomplished the rare feat of earning two academy award nominations one for supporting actor and glenn gary glenn ross and one for leading actor in scent of a woman for his performance incentive woman he received the academy award roger ebert called lieutenant colonel slade one of al's best and riskiest performances because at first the character is so abrasive we can hardly stand him and only gradually do we begin to understand how he works and why he isn't as miserable as he seems did you feel it was risky yeah i did marty breast the director helped me a great deal in it and i think that i um i found that i was i was picking something that was um going in a direction that was uh i wish i could do me as kevin does me you know i could be everywhere i i i'm just trying to say why i thought it was a risk i could have toned it down i guess but i couldn't see it so i i was unable to um you're not apologizing for the way no oh god no no no i'm not apologizing no i don't mean it that way i just feel that i i went after it and said let it go you know you break my heart son all my life i stood up to everyone and everything because it made me feel important you do it because you mean it you got integrity charlie i don't know whether they shoot you or adopt you how much of a choice is it sir oh don't get cute now colonel could you please put the gun away i asked you a question do you want me to adopt you or don't you please i mean you're just in a slump right now slump no slump charlie i'm bad i'm not bad no i'm rotten you look for risk i do someone once said you're as good as the chances you take one of the most difficult character elements for an actor to play is blindness it's exceedingly difficult you made it look exceedingly easy my oldest daughter was little at the time and i i watched her i asked her to do a blind person for me she had no trouble with it you're talking about a child yeah she was about three four or something she just did it i thought okay and i thought there's something to that then i visited the blind and i worked with blind people and i looked at films of real blind people and decided not to use any prosthetic just just just just do it do it blind you know close my eyes and do it and then open my eyes and do it it's it's a wonderful acting exercise great exercise so what it does is it helps you it frees you in some strange way it it frees your takes you takes away any self-consciousness or anything because you're focused on other things that's the whole idea is to be so focused on other things that you're able to uh free yourself as they say free yourself as michelangelo once said lord free me of myself so i can please you and i think that basically what you're trying to do is get yourself out of the way all the time and when you're very successful at something it's when you do that the most as jack lemmon said al's not there anymore tell me what is the oscar experience like for you when you win pleasure or pressure what happens to me is i never take the opportunity i feel at the time to really uh be able to because one gets so frigid you know in that situation you get so you get so you freeze up it's very very very at least i do i mean i've seen acceptance speeches they're so wonderful yeah and so heartfelt and that that's the whole idea of it i guess you know i i felt really uh in so grateful but at the same time unable to uh get get out of myself enough to yeah you know and so i was sort of self-conscious and like the actor's enemy and i couldn't say what i wanted to say but afterward i had i i got looser and then you realized because the residue is over a couple of weeks i mean it's as though you won the um some olympic medal you're a winner and everybody knows it it's like everybody congratulates you it's it's an almost most extraordinary experience but i had a strange thing happen to me what i won the oscar and i was in shock kind of you know i was overwhelmed by the whole thing now the whole dish dolphin so i get in the elevator and i'm going down with a lot of people who are all packed in there like soybeans and i got my oscar and this very uh well-known actress is standing in front of me in the elevator and we're going down and she starts to score a little bit and then i realize that the head of my oscar is in her uh it's touching her behind you know and i thought oh man you know this is so weird so i i i take the oscar up and i bring it back up like that and i i just leaned over in her ear and i said oh pardon me uh that wasn't me it's my oscar that's a true story that's my favorite oscar story that we've made yeah from the moment it was announced that you and robert de niro would co-star in michael mann's heat we waited for the scenes that you would have together how many scenes were there for the two of you i think there's one one it arrives at one hour 28 minutes and 48 seconds into the film and it's worth the wait how long were you on the set together shooting that scene robert was very smart about that and i i sort of picked up his vibe because because bobby really puts out a vibe and you really can pick it up he's really really good at that he really knows how to and he's very smart so i i thought he doesn't seem to want to rehearse and i think michael mann also picked that up i never mentioned it to him but i i felt as though he didn't want to rehearse and he was right so i never rehearsed it with him we never had one second of rehearsal how many takes oh it's michael mann you're doing a lot of takes you know yeah i i don't know how many but it was it was over 10. 14 according to michael mann he said that you guys had nailed it on the knife and then he used a lot of the 11th take and but there were a lot of takes michael mann said he used two cameras one on each of you yeah actually simultaneously i like that that's that's a good way to shoot and nothing is lost you're in it together at the same time you know and it's uh it's wonderful you know we're sitting here you and i like a couple of regular fellas you do what you do i do what i gotta do and now that we've been face to face if i'm there and i gotta put you away i won't like it but i'll tell you if it's between you and some poor bastard whose wife you're gonna turn into a widow brother you are going down there's a flip side to that coin what if you do got me boxed in and i got to put you down [Music] because no matter what you will not get in my way in the devil's advocate parade of hits you finally got to play the ultimate bad guy satan himself roger ebert who's never wrong described your glee in the role is that how you see satan as a guy who enjoys his work well yeah he's sort of an angry clown he was so much fun to play i can't tell you and i went on and on about finding out what was going on in the origins and paradise lost yes yes and and getting involved again in all these things that this sort of that's what i mean about osmosis you you you go into a thing and you just try to get as much stuff into you i i always recommend that to actors get as much stuff into you so that you get further and further away from the words and into the behavior and the stuff that is there and it comes into you and it seeps into your unconscious and it and it has finds a way hopefully when it connects it finds a way out and it can lead to all kinds of interesting interesting moments there's a scene toward the end of the devil's advocate in which you reveal yourself and your philosophy to keanu reeves it is beyond operatic it borders on ecstasy i'm here on the ground with my nose in it since the whole thing began i've nurtured every sensation man has been inspired to have i cared about what he wanted and i never judged him why because i never rejected him in spite of all his imperfections i'm a fan of man i'm a humanist maybe the last humanist who in their right mind kevin could possibly deny the 20th century was entirely mine all of it kevin all of it my i'm peeking kevin it's my time now it's our time [Music] al won the emmy and golden globe for his searing portrayal of roy cohn in mike nichols acclaimed television production of tony kushner's angels in america i would assume that any account of this experience begins with its director mike nichols when mike was with us he spoke of his approach to directing did he rehearse his cast yeah did you enjoy those rehearsals oh yeah were they helpful well mike is just you know mike's the greatest yeah tony kushner i mean these are the two smartest people i've ever met you're you're up there too i mean they're so smart they make you feel smart you know and uh with mike his insights and the way he directs and and and with him it's really the uh the ambience he creates you don't even know but i mean you're just sort of talking to him and they're talking and then somehow you get in the scene and the scene starts there's there's no it's like that's just and it happens but he does rehearse you part of his thing is the casting you know he doesn't have to do say a lot of things to people because they're they come with stuff because they're right for the rules because that's basically acting you know in the end it's it's certain parts actors really can relate to and and that's part of what directors do they try to cast the right actor not necessarily the greatest actor but the right actor for the role one person who was on our stage said about mike's direction when mike gives you a direction you don't know it until too late you don't know and then you think i thought of that yeah yeah it's a lovely way of of directing well he would say oh try it this way try it that way we'll try it this way well he knew the way he wanted but he'd give you a couple of other ways to go you know just to take the onus off it yeah and that's that's just uh he's a beauty there's plenty of footage on roy cohn did you go back to the source and preparing the rules yeah i did look in the living room yeah i don't like it like him no no no how is it my roy cohn is tony kushner really that's who's right conan it is i believe that it's who wrote it that's the score that's what you're playing you're playing the score this is not a documentary on roy cohn those scenes that are so kind of actor proof i mean they're so brilliantly beautifully written and so it's there the characters there and so you score that you play that it's like music you know you play those those are the notes you you go to the scene that's like music is that first scene where you're on the telephone you keep punching the dials i mean that is music that's an aria yeah was that all written exactly by tony kushner are we improvising exactly exactly things exactly like he and david mamet you do it exactly the way that i understand shakespeare stephen holden in his review said al pacino's spitting and hissing portrayal of the dying roy cohn is so deep it inclines you towards sympathy for the devil since an actor's duty is to believe what his character believes was sympathy or at least empathy or intention or did you never think of it in those terms doing tony kushner one critic called the scene in which roy learns he has aids from a doctor one of the most richly imagined meditations on power ever shown on television homosexuals are not men who sleep with other men homosexuals are men who in 15 years of trying cannot pass a piss ant anti-discrimination bill through city council homosexuals are men who know nobody and who nobody knows who have zero clout does this sound like me and me no no i have clout lots i pick up this phone i punch 15 numbers you know who's on the other end in under five minutes henry the president better henry his wife i'm impressed i don't want you to be impressed i want you to understand this is not self-esteem and this is not hypocrisy this is reality what made you decide it was time to make the leap to the language of the bard that's a leap that most american actors spend most of their careers carefully avoiding sometimes you're at a certain place like like anything you go along you're living you things are happening and all of a sudden somebody comes along and offers you the merchant of venice and you say why the hell not why not it's a great rule you could do certain things you could get inside the the the sadness of the man the reason and you can give a history so that an audience has something to identify with in in this character ebert wrote pacino has a way of attacking and caressing shakespeare's language at the same time did you address the language as language well you have to certainly address a certain iambic that you're working with the iambic pentamine yes you need an appetite you need an appetite for words i see we live in a world where dvd sales are eclipsing movie grosses you have a dvd in the stores what is it called patio collection it contains not one but three motion pictures what made you decide to put three films onto one dvd under your name and banner these films are are not usual in their personal films their films i worked on right they're an extension of the world i came from of the avant-garde right you know and the kind of plays i was familiar with and the kind of things that i i i enjoyed doing so it was a kind of personal collection i'm looking for richard is one of them he received the director's guild award for best director yeah looking for richard is a combination of two elements isn't it it's playing a part and examining the whole process right yeah is that the whole purpose of it yeah i thought i would do three tracks one track that's why do americans have trouble with shakespeare one is who is william shakespeare and the other was richard iii some remarkable people joined you on this journey oh yeah how long did it take you to complete looking for richard four years and finally then you put your creative money so to speak where your mouth is by mounting scenes from the play itself yes it is my opinion that the single most difficult scene in the lexicon of the english dramatic language is the scene between lady anne and richard iii he has slaughtered her family and she is taking her husband's father to the grave in his coffin richard stops her and five minutes later has won her hand thy beauty that did haunt me in my sleep to undertake the death of all the world that i might live one hour in your sweet bosom teach not thy lip such school it was made for kissing lady not for such contempt if thy revengeful heart cannot forgive no here here i lend me this sharp pointed dagger [Music] if thou wish to hide in this true breast and let forth the soul that adoreth thee i lay it naked to the deadly stroke and i humbly beg the death upon my knee who played your lady anne we're not a writer it's a wonderful scene to try it's the biggest fence i think an actor can jump why i always thought shakespeare had to be an actor is because he wrote in such a way [Music] that if you just do his words and follow it fall out so many productions cut the lady unseen but all those words are there to help you through the transitions your perseverance and your loyalty to work that you admire is legendary when did you first appear in the local stigmatic i think was 1969 at the active studio another thing is that these three projects yeah chinese coffee local stigmatic and looking for richard really were born out of the active studio did you rehearse this film oh did i did i how long i rehearsed three months with the actor paul gilford we rehearsed three months on this film you have to understand how i believe in rehearsal is you get together and then you go to dinner and then you don't see each other a couple of days then you get together for an hour so then you see each other and then boom boom then a month goes by two months go by and you gradually sort of merge into the play and i and i really think that that's the thing that stands out in the piece is a relationship that could not have been done uh if we just picked it up and had an assignment and went to do it well scott nothing to do with resenting you nothing at all it's just that it seems stupid you're not there with sharon and ray to defend yourself i think he's ready now right have his face done what's that on the left-hand side of his face right what's that birthmark no i just did this wasn't i gonna tell you a story listen listen this man and wife go into a pup and the man says to the barman i'll have a guinness and the bar man says with a wink that'll put lead in your pencil the local stigmatic is a virtual two-hander chinese coffee has its center another duet and i saw at the active studio at the studio yeah once again i was at a session you know and there it was played you described chinese coffee as an off-off broadway film yeah i thought the new norwalk worked wonderfully together thanks jake you really take my breath away i mean with all your heart you believe there's only one way to make money oh oh what way is that anyway no no i don't subscribe to them oh no why because of principles precisely but you have no principles where are they from the moment you started reading this book you knew i could do something with it and what did you do you try to talk me out of it because of the damage you do oh you are such a liar jake i never knew that about you that you were such a liar i thought you were crazy i thought you were contrary unduly critical at times but i believed everything you said had weight and was truthful but you lie jake you lie you lied tonight you lied about what you thought my books chances might be you lied about having read it you lied probably about what you thought of it too absolutely not no no no no aside from anything else anything else it's lousy writing that's the best thing i've ever written no oh no it's lousy it may be the best thing i'm ever going to write chick but it's no good what's your stake in that when you're directing a film in which you appear how do you manage the transition from the director's objectivity very well to the subjectivity of the actor when you walk out in front of i don't recommend it so you found that it was an impediment it was an impediment for me i would have preferred uh someone else would you like to direct if you're not acting in a film who wouldn't but i really want to be as a director yeah in our classroom with the questionnaire that was invented by my great hero bernard pivo and it begins with this question i actually thought you forgot that up there okay now what's your favorite word oh anodine what is your least favorite word no what turns you on everything really everything i believe i i absolutely believe you what turns you off lying what sound or noise do you love soft rain outside yeah window what sound or noise do you hate a dentist drill the moment we've all waited for oh have we just heard your favorite curse word yeah what profession other than yours would you like to attempt a good doctor what profession would you not like to attempt well i did it the profession i wouldn't want to do because i did it and it's tough is is is moving furniture that's a hard job okay if heaven exists what would you like to hear god say when you arrive at the pearly gates rehearsals tomorrow at three things thanks thank you jim hello i am marve third year director and first of everything thank you so much for being with us tonight i mean i cannot even believe if you are there and i'm here and we are in the same room but probably two or three days i will digest you already said you like working with directors and you like taking directions what you don't want from a director well i sort of don't like it when they tell you what you're thinking i like when directors sort of show you what to do like go here go there go there sometimes directives will will say to you things like okay here's the scene here today uh al where do you think you you want to go and i really i really have trouble with that i don't say anything i i know we have to get into the whole thing of doing it i prefer director who says go here go and then you could say gee that doesn't work for me or whatever i like directors who direct i like directors who listen i love what they have ideas but basically i like them to fill a scene with uh with stuff that uh makes you you know makes you respond once i directed i realized you know the the it's overwhelming uh responsibility of it so you learn to respect it respect it because they got quite a job and when they do it well it's magic good evening mr patino good evening one of the things that you're most famous for is the characters that you've created that will go down in film history and i was just wondering which of these characters do you think is more like yourself and which one that you've created is least like yourself i tell you the truth is is they're they're they're all a part of me and as as close i i mean myself is in them so i can tell you what i would like to be like myself you know but their paintings their their impressions that i have of something and it's what i see so i i paint it like and it has a sort of uh whatever you would say it's just sort of has its own stamp which is my stamp and that's how i look at it i don't see it as which one's most like me or not like me i it's me doing it that's all i know and the the the closer i get to expressing myself through it the better it is for me hopefully it communicates itself and i communicate it's a form of communication this thing we do with our own with us and parts and getting it across so it's pacino my name's peter i'm an actor you talked about like what um courses of events took place to get you to where you had a little bit more freedom in your choices professionally and in life in general i'm wondering what got you through those lean years i mean you talk about sleeping on the stage being homeless and whatnot yeah what helped you get through i was very young i just had hope i i thought things were going to be okay i thought what was coming up was coming up and uh i had i had a great part in the play on the stage i was sleeping on you know and i was going to a phase where um i was so into books and i was discovering everybody like i was certainly discovering the russian writers and the french writers and i was immersed in books all the time yeah you know you get a meal here and there you know you work it out and you know you have nobody to answer to but yourself i mean when you're that young you can take a piece of pizza and it's it you can work the body really breaks that down big time and it's great for you now you know you just get fat but the most important thing is to try to get a job in acting is to try to get work in acting and we all know that and that's why i say about the uh and why i think acting classes are good it's exciting when you're doing a scene it's exciting when you're when you're working out a play it's exciting because there are people there and that's what was so great about the studio why that was such institutions like that or like this place are so important to actors because it's an opportunity to do it in front of people and there's nothing nothing more nothing better than that for you it's a script an actor in front of people that's the name of the game and that's how you learn and that's how you massage that instrument then you just keep doing it and you fall down you get up you go this way you go that way you're unhappy with yourself you you think you're the worst actor that's ever lived like lee strasberg used to say you learn the most from your failures you just do yeah so the idea is to do it all you want to keep inventing you want to keep not knowing i'm talking as an older actor here to you you try to find a way to see something fresh and not know what you're going to do and that's why when when james litton said to me how do you feel with actors when you're meeting him for the first time well and they feel about you because but the truth is i'm doing this for the first time i'm just like like they are i hope if that stops i will stop because then what's the point you know then it's a job

Channel: Erik Baeza

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Keywords: shortfilm, cortometraje, drama, film

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Length: 87min 16sec (5236 seconds)

Published: Fri Feb 12 2021