Al Pacino

Don't get too cocky, my boy. No matter how good you are, don't ever let them see you coming. That's the gaffe, my friend. You gotta keep yourself small. Innocuous. Be the little guy. You know, the nerd, the leper, shit-kicking surfer. Look at me. Underestimated from day one. You'd never think I was a master of the universe. Now, would you?

Alfredo James Pacino (born April 25, 1940) is an Academy Award-, Golden Globe-, Tony-, BAFTA-, Emmy- and Screen Actors Guild Awards-winning American film and stage actor and director.

Quotes

Producing Off-Off-Broadway (2007)

• Off-Off-Broadway is absolutely necessary. It doesn't have to be sanctioned by the state, subsidized or anything. The plank and the passion is what it's about.

• You need friends, especially in the theatre, you need friends. You need people to interchange with, interface with, connect with. Together you’re going to make it, you’re going to do it together, you’re going to put it on, whatever it is.

• The greatest theatre that I experienced in my life was The Living Theatre and they were Off-Off-Broadway. And that was in the fifties.

Quotes about Pacino

• [Insomnia]’s a film that I look back on with great fondness. Working with Al Pacino, Robin Williams and Hilary Swank was an incredible experience. Sometimes, when people look for connections in your work, they look more at things like budget level than at the filmmaking itself. If you compare it to Oppenheimer, for example, there’s a similar attempt to try and convey the subjective experience of the protagonist. In the case of Pacino’s character, he’s suffering from a distortion of perception due to lack of sleep, and it’s not a million miles away from what I’m trying to do with showing Oppenheimer’s internal process, particularly at the beginning of the film.
  • Christopher Nolan, as quoted in Christopher Nolan: a showman's odyssey, by James Bell, 14 February 2024, Sight and Sound magazine, British Film Institute.