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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.
Al Pacino -
I am more alive in the theater than anywhere else, but what I take into the theater I get from the streets.
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.
Al Pacino -
Chekhov was as important to me as anybody as a writer.
Al Pacino -
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.
Al Pacino -
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.
Al Pacino -
My early career was a real rush of movies and stardom - it was almost overwhelming.
Al Pacino -
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.
Al Pacino
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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.
Al Pacino -
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.
Al Pacino -
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.
Al Pacino -
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.
Al Pacino -
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.
Al Pacino -
Responsibilities are relative. My responsibility is to a character in a script, to a part I'm playing.
Al Pacino
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If you get all tangled up, just tango on.
Al Pacino -
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.
Al Pacino -
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.
Al Pacino -
Man is a little bit better than his reputation, and a little bit worse.
Al Pacino -
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.
Al Pacino -
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.
Al Pacino
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I think what you see [in Salome the play backstage] is an artist having this fit of temperament.
Al Pacino -
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.
Al Pacino -
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.
Al Pacino -
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.
Al Pacino