Al Pacino Quotes
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The literal, basic thing of the stage is really like a magnet. It brings me back to earth.
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Actors are always outsiders. It's necessary to be able to interpret - and that gets distorted when you become famous.
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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.
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I went to Performing Arts because that was the only school that would accept me. My scholastic level was not very high.
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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."
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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.
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[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.
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My first language was shy. It's only by having been thrust into the limelight that I have learned to cope with my shyness.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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All due respect, and trying to be as modest as I can be: I am a dancer.
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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.
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I've often said there's two kinds of actors. There's a more gregarious type and the shy type.
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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.
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Love is overrated. Biochemically no different than eating large quantities of chocolate.
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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.
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[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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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It wasn't until I got older that I realized acting was something I could really do.
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Freedom, baby, is never having to say youre sorry.