Al Pacino Quotes

I want to be interesting in an interview just as much as I want to do well in a part.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

There has been a lot of self-doubt and unwelcome events in my life.

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.

Drinking and smoking grass were a part of my life as far back as I can remember.

I was never very happy with performing; it didn't turn me on much.

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.

My early career was a real rush of movies and stardom - it was almost overwhelming.

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.

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.

[Salomaybe] is my presentation, my vision of the world. Not so much to satisfy the audience at large.

[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.

I probably write a poem every 50 years.

I'm naturally shy but I've done this [movie Salomaybe] so much and you get better at it than you would think.

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.

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.

It's not personal, it's strictly business

[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.

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.

[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.

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.

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!"

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Learning (Shakespeare's plays) ...in school was a bit of a bore.

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.

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.

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.

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.

All due respect, and trying to be as modest as I can be: I am a dancer.

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.