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A Lot Of Actors Choose Parts By The Scripts, But I Don't Trust Reading The Scripts That Much. I Try To Get Some Friends Together And Read A Script Aloud. Sometimes I Read Scripts And Record Them And Play Them Back To See If There's A Movie. It's Very Evocative; It's Like A First Cut Because You Hear 'she Walked To The Door,' And You Visualize All These Things. 'she Opens The Door' . . . Because You Read The Stage Directions, Too.

-Al Pacino

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A Lot Of Actors

Al Pacino

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A Lot Of Actors Choose Parts By The Scripts, But I Don't Trust Reading The Scripts That Much. I Try To Get Some Friends Together And Read A Script Aloud. Sometimes I Read Scripts And Record Them And Play Them Back To See If There's A Movie. It's Very Evocative; It's Like A First Cut Because You Hear 'she Walked To The Door,' And You Visualize All These Things. 'she Opens The Door' . . . Because You Read The Stage Directions, Too.

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I Don't Regret Anything. I Feel Like I've Made What I Would Call Mistakes. I Picked The Wrong Movie, Or I Didn't Pursue A Character, But Everything You Do Is Part Of You And You Get Something From It.

Acting Is Hard Work. At Times, It's Very Energizing And Enervating. It's Childish. It's Also Responsible. It's Illuminating, Enriching, Joyful, Drab. It's Bizarre, Diabolical. It's Exciting.

At This Point In My Career, I Don't Have To Deal With Audition Rejections. So I Get My Rejection From Other Things. My Children Can Make Me Feel Rejected. They Can Humble You Pretty Quick.

Actually, The Person I Related To Was James Dean. I Grew Up With The Dean Thing. Rebel Without A Cause Had A Very Powerful Effect On Me.

You Need Some Insecurity If You're An Actor. It Keeps The Pot Boiling. I Haven't Yet Started To Think About Retiring. I Was Shocked When I Heard About Paul Newman Retiring At Age 82. Most Actors Just Fade Away Like Old Soldiers.

I Always Tell The Truth. Even When I Lie.

When You Perform With A Live Audience, The Audience Comes Back To You, So That You And The Audience Are Giving To Each Other, In A Sense. It's An Extraordinary Thing. It's Wild Turf Up There.

Extraordinary Things

Sometimes The Only Way You Can Get An Audience Is At An Audition.

[oscar Wilde's Salome Screenplay] Is Not Autobiographical In A Sense Where You Go To My House And See My Kids And Stuff Like That, But That's Why I Guess It's Semi-autobiographical.

When My Mother Got Home From Work, She Would Take Me To The Movies. It Was Her Way Of Getting Out, And She Would Take Me With Her. I'd Go Home And Act All The Parts. It Had A Tremendous Influence On My Becoming An Actor.

I Hope The Perception Is That I'm An Actor, I Never Intended To Be A Movie Star.

I Always Had This Thing, When I Was Younger Especially, I Didn't Want To Do Movies That Much. I Found They Took A Lot Out Of You And They Were Exhausting For Me In A Lot Of Ways.

The Difference Between The Actor And The Painter Is That The Actor Would Buy Somebody A Knish In Order To Have Them Watch Him Act.

I Wouldn't Be Interested In [nowadays] Television Simply Because I Think It Goes Too Fast. Except If Something Was Maybe A Play On Television Or Some Great Television Script.

Sometimes It's Better To Be With The Devil U Know Than The Angel U Didn't Know

It's So Funny When People Who Are Not Used To Making Movies Get Into It. You Just Can't Believe How Insufferably Boring It Is. Waiting Around And Doing These Lines Over And Over And Finally Having To Go In And Loop The Lines And Dub Them.

Being The Actors Of The Craft, The Trade, One Of The Big Things You Do And You Learn Is About Repeating. There Is Something To The Repeats. I Think That Is Part Of What Is Healthy To Young Actors. Get Out And Learn Something Just Through Doing That, Repeating.

There Has Been A Lot Of Self-doubt And Unwelcome Events In My Life.

It's Easy To Fool The Eye But It's Hard To Fool The Heart.

I Personally Think If You're Given Four Months Instead Of Four Weeks On A Play, With The People Who Want To Work That Way, The Play Will Invariably Be Different And Stronger, And Much More Fulfilling And Richer On All Counts. There's No Doubt In My Mind About It.

Larry Grobel Has The Illness Of All Writers, He Can't Help Himself. You're Talking To Him And All Of A Sudden, You Say, "he's Puttin' That In His Cash Register!"

The Fruit Falls Off The Tree. You Don't Shake It Off Before It's Ready To Fall.

It Was A Compromise. There Was A Sense That I Could Write My Own Memoirs, And Larry [grobel] Would Help Me Down The Line, Or Maybe Not, Maybe He Was Too Close To Me.

I Turned Down A Lot Of Films Before I Made My First One. I Knew That It Was Time For Me To Get Into Movies.

I’ve Always Been In The Theater. I’ve Always Gone To It. That’s Been My Way To Cope. Early On In My Career, I Remember Running - Fleeing - To The Theater As A Way Of Coping With All The Meshugaas That Was Going On For Me.

The Literal, Basic Thing Of The Stage Is Really Like A Magnet. It Brings Me Back To Earth.

The Hardest Thing About Being Famous Is That People Are Always Nice To You. You're In A Conversation And Everybody's Agreeing With What You're Saying - Even If You Say Something Totally Crazy. You Need People Who Can Tell You What You Don't Want To Hear.

I Don't Need Bodyguards. I'm From The South Bronx.

The Actor Becomes An Emotional Athlete.

"to Be Or Not To Be Is" [by William Shakespeare] Beyond Anything I Can Comprehend. I Understand It On A Superficial Level, But The Depth Of It Just Boggles My Mind. I Think It's Probably The Greatest Of All Speeches Ever Written.

I Destroy The Painting As Soon As I Can See What It Is. When I Can Make Out Something In It, I Destroy It Because It's No Longer Coming From My Unconscious.

[ocean's Thirteen] Is A Great Group, And It Was An Opportunity To Work With Steven Soderbergh. But Mainly? It Was Shot In L.a. And I Want To Be Next To My Kids. So I've Been Doing Everything That Has To Do With Being Next To Them, Close To Them.

An Actor Basically Likes To Be Asked To Do Something, No Matter What Position He's In. It Feels More Natural. Sitting And Waiting Is More Gratifying.

[julie Marie Pacino]is A Great Ballplayer, Which I Wanted To Be. She Did Make Four Films By The Time She Was 14 But We're Not Going To Talk About That.

People Are Always Asking Me To Do Shakespeare - At Home, At Colleges, On Film Locations, In Restaurants. It's Like Playing A Piece Of Music, Getting All The Notes. It's Great Therapy.

That's The Way To Live - Around People Who Care. It May Be A Tough Ride, But Something Is Going To Come Out Of It.

There Is No Happiness. There Is Only Concentration.

A Kiss Is A Lusty Dollop Of Dessert To Be Served With Desire And Savored With Passion.

It Surprised Me, The Feeling I Got When I Won The Oscar For 'scent Of A Woman.' It Was A New Feeling. I'd Never Felt It. I Don't See My Oscar Much Now. But When I First Got It, There Was A Feeling For Weeks Afterward That I Guess Is Akin To Winning A Gold Medal In The Olympics.

I'm An Actor, And Everything About Me - The Way I Perceive Things, The Way I Have Seen The World - Has Been In Relation To Characters And How I Would Want To Play Something Or Not Play It.

I'm Always On A Red Carpet . . . The Other Day I Thought, This Ain't Bad. You Can Meet People On It.

A Lot Of Actors Choose Parts By The Scripts, But I Don't Trust Reading The Scripts That Much. I Try To Get Some Friends Together And Read A Script Aloud. Sometimes I Read Scripts And Record Them And Play Them Back To See If There's A Movie. It's Very Evocative; It's Like A First Cut Because You Hear 'she Walked To The Door,' And You Visualize All These Things. 'she Opens The Door' . . . Because You Read The Stage Directions, Too.

It Wasn't Until I Got Older That I Realized Acting Was Something I Could Really Do.

I Have A Life And Do A Lot Of Things, And So Far My Work Has Been My Life. If I Was A Painter No One Would Question Me About My Age. I'm An Artist, I Hate Saying That.

I'm Naturally Shy But I've Done This [movie Salomaybe] So Much And You Get Better At It Than You Would Think.

Man Is A Little Bit Better Than His Reputation, And A Little Bit Worse

All Due Respect And Trying To Be As Modest As I Can Be, I Am A Dancer. But I Don't Think I Would Be On 'dancing With The Stars,' Mainly Because I Would Be Too Shy.

We Start To Realize That There Are Anodynes In Life That Help Us Through The Day. I Don't Care If It's A Walk In The Park, A Look Out The Window, A Good Bubble Bath - Whatever. Even A Meal You Like, Or A Friend You Want To Call. That Helps Us Solve All This Stuff In Our Head.

I Understand The Directors Much More. I Was Always Rebelling Against Them When I Was A Youngster, I Didn't Want To Be Told What To Do. I Had No Identification.

[marlon] Brando's A Giant On Every Level. When He Acts It's As If He Landed From Another Planet. A Planet Where They Produce Great Actors.

Show Me A Bad Script And I Will Show You A Big Payday.

The Interesting Thing About This Is I Don't Know What My Vision [ In Salome The Play And Salomaybe] Is Yet About. I'm Sensing Something And I'm Going Along With It. It Reminds Me Of A Painting, The Way Jackson Pollack Painted - Jackson Pollack, The Great, Great Artist.

My Early Career Was A Real Rush Of Movies And Stardom - It Was Almost Overwhelming.

There Are A Lot Of Roles In Shakespeare, Basically. If I Feel That The Script Is A Movie, I Would Be Interested In Doing Any Role Of Shakespeare's.

You Sharpen The Human Appetite To The Point Where It Can Split Atoms With Its Desire; You Build Egos The Size Of Cathedrals; Fiber-optically Connect The World To Every Eager Impulse; Grease Even The Dullest Dreams With These Dollar-green, Gold-plated Fantasies, Until Every Human Becomes An Aspiring Emperor, Becomes His Own God... And Where Can You Go From There?

I Don't Like What's Going On In Iraq, Naturally. I'm Part Of A Large Majority Of People Who Don't, But I Do Not Know The Whole Story. I Do Not Believe What I See On Television. I Believe A Percentage Of It, So It's Hard For Me To Discern. I Don't Like What It's Doing To The World.

In America Most Everybody Who's Italian Is Half Italian. Except Me. I'm All Italian. I'm Mostly Sicilian, And I Have A Little Bit Of Neapolitan In Me. You Get Your Full Dose With Me.

What's This Thing That Gets Between Us And Shakespeare?

Love Goes Through Different Stages. But It Endures.

[salomaybe] Is My Presentation, My Vision Of The World. Not So Much To Satisfy The Audience At Large.

Whether He's Doing Great Acting Or Not, You're Seeing Somebody Who Is In The Tradition Of A Great Actor. What He Does With It, That's Something Else, But He's Got It All. The Talent, The Instrument Is There, That's Why He Has Endured.

Many Years Ago, In The Late '70s, I Toured Colleges Along The East Coast And I Presented A Kind Of Show Where I Got A Lot Of Books And Poetry And Pieces Of [william] Shakespeare And Other Writers That I Admire, Read It To The Class And Then Afterward We Would Talk And I Would Answer Questions. It Was Really A Way Of Expressing And Finding Out About Where I Was At That Particular Time, So It Was Very Therapeutic For Me.

I Come From The South Bronx - A True Descendant Of The Melting Pot. I Grew Up In A Really Mixed Neighborhood; It Was A Very Integrated Life.

I Went To Performing Arts Because That Was The Only School That Would Accept Me. My Scholastic Level Was Not Very High.

The Truth Is, You Know, We Need Our Anodynes. You Know That Word, Anodynes? We Need That In Life Some Times. A Good Warm Bath Can Be One For You, Or A Whatever.

My Grandfather Was A Provider. Work, Any Kind Of Work, Was The Joy Of His Life. So I Grew Up Having A Certain Relationship To Work. It Was Something That I Always Wanted.

My Dad Was In The Army. World War Ii. He Got His College Education From The Army. After World War Ii He Became An Insurance Salesman. Really, I Didn't Know My Dad Very Well. He And My Mother Split Up After The War. I Was Raised By My Maternal Grandmother And Grandfather, And By My Mother.

If You Can Identify With People, You Can Empathize With People And Therefore You Understand Things.

We Live In A World Where The More You're Working, The More Things You Do. It's A Workaday World.

I Would Say I Am More Concerned With The Plays I'm Going To Do Than The Movies. I'm More Comfortable In A Play. In Film, There's Always A Certain Sense Of Control, Of Holding Back. The Stage Is Different ; There's More To Act. There Are More Demands Put On You, More Experiences To Go Through.

Failure's Relative. I've Always Felt, Even Early On, If I Lose The Freedom To Fail, Something's Not Right About That. It's How You Treat Failure, Too. There's Something To Learn From It. I've Had Movies That Have Failed Colossally, So You Kind Of Analyze Your Failures: What Kind Of Failure Was It? A Failure Because It's Misunderstood By Others? A Failure Because You Misunderstood It Yourself?

It's Never Really That Much Fun For Me To Do Movies Anyway, Because You - You Know, You Have To Get Up Very Early In The Morning And You Have To Go In And You Spend A Lot Of Time Waiting Around.

The Play Is The Source, It Is Orchestrated With Words. In A Movie, You Are Not Dealing With As Much As That. There Are Machines And Wires. When You're Acting For A Camera, It Keeps Taking And Never Giving Back.

I Went Back To The Stage Because It Was My Way Of Dealing With The Success I Had, My Way Of Coping. It Was A Way Of Escaping The Responsibilty Of What Was Happening.

I Found That Speaking Live To People, Young People, About What I Liked And What Had Been Happening To Me Was Very Good For Me. I Was Quite Overtaken By Success And Fame. I Was One Of Those Types Who Responded To It In A Negative Way. It Was Not Easy.

I Like, For Instance, 'serpico.' I Enjoyed Playing Serpico Because Frank Serpico Was There. He Existed. He Was A Real Life Person And I Could - I Could Embody Him. I Could, You Know, I Could Work And Get To Know Him And Have Him Help Me With The Text, The Script And Become Him. It's Almost Like A Painter Having A Model To Become.

Drinking And Smoking Grass Were A Part Of My Life As Far Back As I Can Remember.

I Like Women Who Can Cook. That's First. Love Is Very Important, But You've Got To Have A Friend First - You Want To Finally Come To A Point Where You Say That The Women You're With Is Also Your Friend.

I Don’t Understand The Hatred And Fear Of Gays And Bisexuals And Lesbians… It’s A Concept I Honestly Cannot Grasp. To Me, It’s Not Who You Love… A Man, A Woman, What Have You… It’s The Fact That You Love. That Is All That Truly Matters.

The Thing That Can Get You A Little Upset Is When People Say Other People Are Better Than You. That Can Bug You.

When You Do These Things, You Sort Of Take The Journey. The Journey Is All About How I Can Interweave The Oscar Wilde Story, The Story Of Salome, The Play Itself And What It Is, What It Contains, And My Journey As An Actor, As A Director, As A Filmmaker, As A Person Struggling With Whatever I'm Struggling With - My Own Celebrity, My Own Life. This Is Semi-autobiographical In Terms Of My Commitment To This Kind Of Thing.

I'm Constantly Striving To Break Through To Something New. You Try To Maintain A Neutral Approach To Your Work, And Not Be Too Hard On Yourself.

I'm Not A Violent Person, Never Was, But I Have This Temperament That I've Always Displayed. I Guess It Has To Do With My Tradition And Being Italian, We're Very Outgoing With Our Emotions.

I've Often Said There's Two Kinds Of Actors. There's A More Gregarious Type And The Shy Type.

I Don't Think Actors Should Ever Expect To Get A Role, Because The Disappointment Is Too Great. You've Got To Think Of Things As An Opportunity. An Audition's An Opportunity To Have An Audience.

When I Was Doing 'scarface,' I Remember Being In Love At That Time. One Of The Few Times In My Life. And I Was So Glad It Was At That Time. I Would Come Home And She Would Tell Me About Her Life That Day And All Her Problems And I Remember Saying To Her, Look, You Really Got Me Through This Picture Because I Would Shed Everything When I Came Home.

Sometimes You're Fighting Corporations And Forget That People Can Talk To Each Other.

We Were Doing Scarface Many Years Ago...and I Remember Having My Coffee And Looking At The Beach, The Surf, And I Saw A Hundred People Looking Out Into The Ocean. I Thought, What's Going On? Did Some Whale Get Washed Up To Shore? So I Stood Up On The Table To See What It Was, And It Was The Director, Brian De Palma, Standing There Alone By The Surf And They Were All Waiting For Him. And I Never Forgot That Because It Represented To Me What A Director Is, What A Director Does.

Everything Changes With Age. The Parts Change With Age, Your Feelings About Them Change, Roles That I Would've Wanted To Play 10 Years Ago, I Don't Want To Play Now.

I Believe In One Day At A Time; You've Got Today, That's What You' Ve Got.

One Day At A Time

I Never Saw Myself As A Director. It's Certainly A Second Language But Making Movies For 40 Years, You Pick Stuff Up. However, This Style Of Making Movies, This Documentary Style, Is Easier For Me Because I Gather A Lot Of Material And With An Editor, Write It On Screen. You Try To Write Based On What You Shot.

I'm So Shy Now I Wear Sunglasses Everywhere I Go.

Learning (shakespeare's Plays) ...in School Was A Bit Of A Bore.

I Am More Alive In The Theater Than Anywhere Else, But What I Take Into The Theater I Get From The Streets.

I'm An Actor, Not A Star. Stars Are People Who Live In Hollywood And Have Heart-shaped Swimming Pools.

There Was Once A Great Actor Named George C. Scott. He Was On Stage In The Delacourt Theater In Central Park, Where They Do Shakespeare Every Summer, And He Was Playing Shylock In The Merchant Of Venice. At One Point He Took The Robes He Was Wearing And Just Started Flipping Them Up In The Air, Out Of Nowhere. And Later, An Actor Said To Him, "what Was That, George, What Were You Doing?" And He Said, "they Were Sleeping." You're Always Trying To Catch Them.

You Never Open Your Mouth Until You Know What The Shot Is.

I Didn't Go For The Needle At All. I Never Cared For Drugs, Because I Saw What They Did To Most People. I Thought That Was The End Of The Road.

Did You Know I Started Out As A Stand-up Comic? People Don't Believe Me When I Tell Them. That's How I Saw Myself, In Comedy.

All Due Respect, And Trying To Be As Modest As I Can Be: I Am A Dancer.

If I Find Something And Feel As Though I Can Contribute To [it] In A Way And Feel I'm In It, Whatever That Means, I'm Expressing Something That I Feel Is A Way To Exercise My Talent And Help Communicate A Role As A Human Being In A Movie, I Will Do That.

I Found Out How Temperamental I Am, Yes. And That Sometimes That Can Be Kind Of Off-putting.

The Thing Is Doing It, That's What It's All About. Not In The Results Of It. After All What Is A Risk? It's A Risk Not To Take Risks. Otherwise, You Can Go Stale And Repeat Yourself. I Don't Feel Like A Person Who Takes Risks. Yet There's Something Within Me That Must Provoke Controversy Because I Find It Wherever I Go. Anybody Who Cares About What He Does Takes Risks.

I Had These Little Babies [my Twins] And It Gave Me Something So Spectacular, Such A Feeling - I Was So Turned On And So Excited By Them That I Wrote A Poem. I Had It On Scraps Of Paper And The Maid Threw It Out.

I Want To Be Interesting In An Interview Just As Much As I Want To Do Well In A Part.

Actors Are Always Outsiders. It's Necessary To Be Able To Interpret - And That Gets Distorted When You Become Famous.

It Used To Worry Me What People Said About Me. I'm Learning Not To Worry As Much. Sometimes You Feel Critics Are Wrong All The Time, But I Don 't Take Objection To It, Because That's The Way It Goes. They Can Be Wrong, They Can Be Right. They Can Be Cruel, They Can Be Kind.

Great Directors Can Understand The Staging In Such A Way That Can Make A Scene Come Alive. Others Have A Certain Way Of Pacing The Scene.

I Don't Like A Lot Of Things Like [iraq], I Never Did. Being In A Position Of Celebrity And Having Your Words Carry Such Unnatural Weight...i've Always Been A Bit Squeamish When It Came To That Kind Of Thing.

Romantic Love Can Be A Lot Of Crap, Though, Let Me Tell You. And It Can Hurt You.

Vanity Is My Favourite Sin.

I Probably Write A Poem Every 50 Years.

There Was A Time In My Life When Being Dishonest With Women Was The Natural Way To Be. I Finally Said, "hey, I Have To Stop This Silliness."

My First Language Was Shy. It's Only By Having Been Thrust Into The Limelight That I Have Learned To Cope With My Shyness.

We're Charlatans In A Way, We're Magic People. Part Of The Behind The Scenes Stuff Is To Loosen You Up, To Make You Feel That You Are Experiencing This. This Is My Style, I Did It In Looking For Richard, Too. And I Figure, If I Can Weave It Into The Actual Play And Get The Audience Interested, Like The Robes Going Up And Down, They'll Pay Attention Long Enough To Consume It.

I Didn't Want The Book [of Memoirs] Out, Naturally - Larry [grobel] Knew That For 20 Years, 15 At Least, I Didn't Want Anything Written About Me. Then, You Know, Things Happen, Finally It's Ok And I Trust Larry. Nothing About It Is Salacious In Any Way.

I Love Work Because It Keeps Sex In Perspective. Otherwise, It Can Become A Preoccupation.

When You're Reading Some Of The Great Plays, When You Do What I Call "taking Up With A Writer," Something Happens.

I Learned To Wrestle, I Learned Defensive Fighting At A Young Age, Because When Someone Hit Me, I Would Throw Up And Fall Down.

I Can See [ Talent Or Curiosity For Acting] In My Oldest Daughter [julia Marie Pacino]. I Don't Know How Long She'll Run Away From It, But It's There In Her.

If Something Is Working, Don't Fix It. Keep Going. Go With The Glow.

Opinions I Have About Anything Are In My Personal Life.

If You Get All Tangled Up, Just Tango On.

One Of The Things That Made Me Want To Be An Actor More Than Ever Was Seeing A Chekhov Play, "the Sea Gull," When Was 14 In The Bronx.

There Are People Whose Sense Of Reality Is Very Strong, Who Have A Sense Of Honesty. Lee Strasberg Is Like That, My Grandfather Was Like That. These Are The Kinds Of Men I've Had Close Relationships With.

I Once Asked My Oldest Daughter [julia Marie] If She Thought About Changing Her Name In School And She Said, "no, I'm A Pacino. That's My Name." I Just Wondered How It Would Feel, How People Would Treat Her, But She's Adjusted So Marvelously.

I've Had Very Deep Relationships That Lasted For Long Periods Of Time With People - You Could Almost Call Them Marriages, Even Though I Didn't Marry. But It Was Costly.

Deep Relationship

Jamie Foxx Does A Good Rendition Of Me. It's A Real Gift, Mimicry Of That Kind, The Tonal Thing. It's Sort Of Like Having A Talent For Playing An Instrument.

I Do Believe, And I Will Always Believe, That Shakespeare On Film Is Really Something That Should Be Tried More Often Because It Is An Opportunity To Take The Humanity That Shakespeare Writes Into Characters And Express It.

To Be Really Obvious About Something, If Somebody Straps An M1 On Your Shoulder And Throws You In Iraq, You're Going To Get A Sense Of What The Hell's Going On There. Boy, You'll Wake Up Fast When Bullets Are Flying Over Your Head.

I Think What You See [in Salome The Play Backstage] Is An Artist Having This Fit Of Temperament.

Shakespeare Is One Of The Reasons I've Stayed An Actor. Sometimes I Spend Full Days Doing Shakespeare By Myself, Just For The Joy Of Reading It, Saying Those Words... I Do Shakespeare When I Am Feeling A Certain Way.

If You Have The Opportunity To Meet Someone As An Actor, It's Just Great Fodder For You. It's Wonderful Source Stuff That We Die For.

When I Was Younger, I Would Go To Auditions To Have The Opportunity To Audition, Which Would Mean Another Chance To Get Up There And Try Out My Stuff, Or Try Out What I Learned And See How It Worked With An Audience, Because Where Are You Gonna Get An Audience?

I Was Playing A Part Of Someone Dealing Dope On A Street Corner - And There Was A Guy Actually Dealing Heroin Right There. I Looked At Him, He Looked At Me, And I Got Real Confused.

The Physical Stamina [in Revolution]. I Was Just Shocked By It. I Didn't Think I Had It In Me Ever, And I Wasn't Terribly Young When I Did It. I Was In My Early Forties. That Was The First Thing I Was Struck By, Not By The Acting, Not By Anything Else, But By The Physicality.

I Wanted To Be A Baseball Player, Naturally, But I Wasn't Good Enough. I Didn't Know What I Was Going To Do With My Life. I Just Had A Kind Of Energy, I Was A Fairly Happy Kid.

After Looking At Salomaybe, I Don't Know Who The Hell The Real Me Is. I Think It's Closest Now To The Real Me Because For One Thing, I'm Used To This.

Pretty Soon I'll Start Worrying About [my Fame] Because [my Children] Carry My Name And They Have That Exposure. The Whole Thing Is, They Never Asked For It, That Kingdom.

A Lot Of Acting Is Private Time.

When [julia Marie Pacino] Was 5 Or 6 Years Old, We Were In An Italian Restaurant, And These People Came By The Table And They Would Start Talking To Me, Asking Me For My Autograph And She Just Went Under The Table.

I Want To Be A Great Actor Someday, And I've Decided There's No Use Philosophizing; The Only Way Is To Work At My Craft.

On Any Given Sunday You're Gonna Win Or You're Gonna Lose. The Point Is -- Can You Win Or Lose Like A Man?

I'm Much More A European Italian Than I Am An American Italian, And I've Always Felt That That Style Of Acting Comedy Is In Me. I Put Comedy As Much As I Can Into All My Movies, If I Can Help It.

All I Am Is What I'm Going After.

Francis Ford Coppola Did This Early On. You Tape A Movie, Like A Radio Show, And You Have The Narrator Read All The Stage Directions. And Then You Go Back Like A Few Days Later And Then You Listen To The Movie. And It Sort Of Plays In Your Mind Like A Film, Like A First Rough Cut Of A Movie.

I Used To Say I Wanted To Genuflect To A Woman, Put Her Up On A Pedestal Higher And Higher, Way Up Beyond My Grasp...then I'd Find Another One.

Responsibilities Are Relative. My Responsibility Is To A Character In A Script, To A Part I'm Playing.

It Turned Out That Time Doesn't Heal The Wound , But In Its So Merciful Way , Blunts The Edges Ever So Slightly

Any Project That I Find Encouraging That Isn't Attached To A Studio, I Can Go To Them, Which I Definitely Would. You Have To Take An Interest In What You Do.

Our Life Is Looking Forward Or Looking Back, That's It. Where Is The Moment?

Looking Forward

There Are A Couple Of Times I Would've Liked To Have Married. I Think I Made A Mistake, Especially Once.

The Problem With Me Is, I Guess, The Way I Express Myself, You Have To Be With Me 50 Years Before You Can Get A Sense Of What I'm Talking About.

The Reasons You Have For Doing A Movie Will Vary With The Way Your Life Is Going. There Was A Time When A Made A Some Movies Because I Felt I Needed To Work. And I Didn't Think About The Material As Much. But Sometimes I've Thought About The Material A Lot And Thought I Was Doing The Right Thing, And It Didn't Work Out.

Women Have Always Had Equal Importance Onstage, And Working With Them Must Have Altered My Sensibilities. I've Never Felt Sensitive To The Whole Issue, Because Being Macho Has Never Been A Problem With Me.

That's Where Humour Lives For Me. In The Body. The Steve Martin Kind Of Stuff Or Jim Carrey, That's What I Like. I've Always Felt That's What I Would Like To Do.

When I Was Younger, There Was The Sex Thing. That's Par For The Course.when You're A Movie Star, It Went With It. It's A Kind Of Rite Of Passage, Socially.

I Was Never Very Happy With Performing; It Didn't Turn Me On Much.

It Would Be Hard To Play A Character You Don't Like - For Me Anyway - Or Can't Find Something In Them To Like.

When I Was A Younger Actor, I Would Try To Keep It Serious All Day. But I Have Found, Later On, That The Lighter I Am About Things When I'm Going To Do A Big Scene That's Dramatic And Takes A Lot Out Of You, The Better Off I Am When I Come To It.

Be Careful How You Judge People, Most Of All Friends. You Don't Sum Up A Man's Life In One Moment.

The Actor Becomes An Emotional Athlete. The Process Is Painful - My Personal Life Suffers.

Playing A Character Is An Illusion, And I Feel That When You Know Too Much About A Person, Possibly Part Of That Illusion Is Disrupted.

I Used To Think Of Myself As A Comedian. I've Always Admired Comedians. Their Minds, The Way In Which They Se The World Is So Striking, The Way They Juxtapose Things, The Way They Can See Humor In People. There's A Liberation In That.

I Haven't Encouraged [julia Marie Pacino] Or Discouraged Her. I Let Her Go Her Own Way. I Did Say To Her That I Thought That She Had A Real Gift, And It's A Good Idea To Know That. It's Always Good To Go With Your Gift.

I've Never Cared For Guns. In Fact, When I Did 'scent Of A Woman' I Had To Learn How To Assemble One.

You Don't Get To Know Anybody In A Movie Until After It's Over. You Work Less Together In A Film Than You Do Onstage.

Sometimes What We Imagine And The World Aren't Different Things. Sometimes They Are The Same Exact Thing.

I Don't Talk Politics And I Don't Talk Philosophy Or Anything Like That, But If You Look At My Work, You Might Get An Expression Of Me As A Person.

Shakespeare's Plays Are More Violent Than 'scarface.'

It's Not Personal, It's Strictly Business

My Weaknesses... I Wish I Could Come Up With Something. I'd Probably Have The Same Pause If You Asked Me What My Strengths Are. Maybe They're The Same Thing.

My Movies Are Always Being Played On Television, I'm Very Well Known And All That Stuff - I Go All Over The World, I Have Access To Many Things, Many People, Many Places And It's Wonderful. But Now I'm At A Point Where...i Thought It Was Time To Show Some Of It, To Show Some Of My Feelings About Things And What I Preferred At The Time. I Prefer Them Still But Not To The Extent I Did At The Time.

Chekhov Was As Important To Me As Anybody As A Writer.

The Only Thing In This World That Gives Orders Is Balls.

I Was Watching Revolution, And The Things I Did In That Picture, Holy Smokes! I Can't Believe I Did That, It's Like Another Person. It's The Thought Of It, It's Just Appalling To Me.

Certainly The Movies Were Always In The Air For Me. I Come From The Era When Actors Thought It Was A Big Deal To Be In The Movies.

You Take A Guy Like George Clooney Who Goes Out There To Darfur, And Gets Things Done! That's Magical. He's Done A Great Thing.

Is It Possible To Do Something That That Makes An Audience Uncomfortable, Challenges Them, Makes Them See Things They're Not Used To? Here In These Films [salome The Play And Salomaybe], I Have The Opportunity To Say Something About How I Feel About Things.

Either I Act Or I Die.

I' Ve Won Awards. And They Didn't Make Me Feel Bad Winning Them. They Made Me Feel Pretty Good. But It Also Did Not Make Me Feel Bad Not Winning The Academy Award.

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Johann Sebastian Bach

Benjamin E. Mays

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