Al Pacino Quotes
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It's not personal, it's strictly business.
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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.
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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.
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My early career was a real rush of movies and stardom - it was almost overwhelming.
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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.
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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.
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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 was never very happy with performing; it didn't turn me on much.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Sometimes the only way you can get an audience is at an audition.
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Learning (Shakespeare's plays) ...in school was a bit of a bore.
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I love work because it keeps sex in perspective. Otherwise, it can become a preoccupation.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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[Salomaybe] is my presentation, my vision of the world. Not so much to satisfy the audience at large.
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Man is a little bit better than his reputation, and a little bit worse.
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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.
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Opinions I have about anything are in my personal life.
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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.
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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.
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You'll never be alone if you’ve got a book.