In his new memoirs Sonny BoyAl Pacino looks back on his “moonshot” of a life in Hollywood — and a few specific regrets.
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It can be difficult to reconcile the different versions of Al Pacino. When he emerged in the 1970s alongside the other brooding, intense leading lights of New Hollywood—including Gene Hackman, Dustin Hoffman, and virtual screen rival and soulmate Robert De Niro—Pacino seemed to fit right in. Already in his thirties and a Tony winner having sat in the Actors Studio in time, he arrived in Hollywood ready to undertake a series of tightly controlled performances. His droopy eyes could communicate everything beneath the surface, be it the exhausted paranoia of Frank Serpico or the caged animal threatening to explode out of Sonny Wortzik Dog Day afternoon. But with 1983 ScarfacePacino turned away from his contemporaries and turned to opera. He distinguished himself as the guy who often achieves great success in ways that are both exciting and amazing. He became electrifying and has continued to unveil new versions of himself ever since, building an iconography in the second half of his career that, in its own way, may prove as enduring as that of his early work – from “hoo-ah” to Dunkaccino to to “Solidarity!”, not to mention a few paycheck rolls along the way.

Pacino’s new memoir, Sonny Boyis a 363-page attempt to make sense of it all, spanning from the wild boy being chased by cops across the South Bronx to the octogenarian Hollywood icon dancing through the streets of Beverly Hills . His childhood serves as a framework, with the actor crediting his single mother with keeping him far enough off the streets to avoid the grim fate of his beloved neighborhood crew. The rest of his life, he writes, was a “moonshot,” and the book strolls along with wide-eyed wonder at everything that happened to Pacino. At its best, reading it feels like sitting a chair next to the actor as he tells one anecdote after another, often starting with a charmingly vague table setting about how he “someday” met Marty Sheen in the U.S. met railway. This tone reaches its limits when Pacino addresses difficult topics before backing away from them – for example, when he didn’t pay enough attention to his children when they were little, or when he behaved like a diva long ago could force the psychological curtain to be pulled back again.

Still, we’re here not for a therapy session, but rather to get a glimpse into the idiosyncratic mind of our most mercurial movie star, who’s only too happy to wax poetic about Chekhov’s life-saving qualities or share his imaginary conversations with Bertolt Brecht. Sometimes that’s enough. Below are six takeaways from Sonny Boy.

Early in the book, in a moment that will surely appear in the eventual Pacino biopic, the actor’s mentor, Charlie Laughton, tells him, “Al, you’re going to be a big star.” “I know, Charl. I know,” Pacino replies. This exchange foreshadows a recurring theme: Pacino knows he will make it as an actor because he has and yet he is always surprised by success. When The Godfather When Pacino shoots him out of a cannon in 1972, Pacino describes feeling detached from the fame it brought him. The best thing he can do to explain his own success is to tip his hat to those around him, including longtime manager Marty Bregman and Francis Ford Coppola. who stood up for Pacino when studio executives wanted a more established star.

At times the book leaves you wanting clearer insights into Pacino’s craft, even if the secret to his best achievements lies in the unconscious, as he recently said in his book “New York.” Just Interview. His appearance in Dog day is one of the great wonders of film acting, and yet the most tangible explanation Pacino offers is that one day, after a long night spent pacing around his room while drinking wine, came to set and began playing the character “nervous, animated and excited.” ” Sidney Lumet, the film’s director, somehow says more about his special alchemy with a still vague statement: “This thing is out of our hands, Al.”

In one of the book’s most confusing passages, Pacino describes how one evening after a performance of ” Richard III in 1979 and sat “with his eyes open and beside himself” in his “little armchair”. He looks up and Jacqueline Kennedy is standing in front of him with her daughter. As he looks up at the former first lady, Pacino extends his hand to kiss her. He declines to tell what happened next, but admonishes himself: “Please tell me what’s wrong with me?” I don’t know, Al! The only justification he can offer is that a selfish actor tends to do anything after performing one of the greatest plays of all time.

Other cases of diva behavior crop up, but Pacino claims that stars were often labeled “difficult” for using their influence to make a better movie. In ScarfaceFor example, he pushed for the “Say Goodnight to the Villain” scene, as described, to be filmed in a fancy restaurant (thus an expensive additional location) in order to contrast Tony Montana’s vulgarity with the high society that he will never be a part of . (He was right about that.)

As is often the case with celebrity memoirs, Pacino spends a lot of time on under-appreciated passion projects, like his hybrid documentary Looking for Richard. While filming at the top of the cloisters, he decides against filming on the roof of the Cathedral of St. John the Divine because it is covered in pigeon droppings, which he had heard was “extremely poisonous.” (Which seems to be somewhat true.) Who should he meet that day but the tightrope walker Philippe Petit, who says: “So it’s poison.” When an actor dies, he dies for his art.”

Among his many talents, Pacino seems adept at going broke, as he admits in Sonny Boy. After a few years away from the film business in the late ’80s, he realized that too much money was being spent and nothing was being made, and his then-girlfriend Diane Keaton dragged him to his entertainment lawyer when she realized how bad it was Was. Keaton pointed at Pacino and told the lawyer, “He’s an ignoramus. When it comes down to it, you have to take care of him.” After that, she found that Sea of ​​love I had written the script for him and Pacino was on his way back to the top, baby.

Pacino wants to set the record straight: He has apparently never done cocaine. “It may surprise you,” he writes, “to know that I have never touched the stuff,” explaining that he has always had a lot of energy and that the role of Tony Montana gave him an additional “liberation.” provided. When it comes to overacting, Pacino speaks on a case-by-case basis: “Some movies require it, like.” Scarface. In heathis appearance would make more sense if Michael Mann hadn’t done a shot of Vincent Hanna pressing a button, which would imply that he’s on cocaine for most of the film. In Scent of a womanwell… he may have gotten too big, but he “could do better now.”

At the end of the book, a present-day Pacino takes a look in the mirror, assesses the “old wolf with a snarl” staring back at him, and asks, “Is that still you, Al?” It’s a quiet, breathtaking little moment – ​​an acknowledgment of all that has passed and will never return, wrapped in a bit of self-deprecation from a man who isn’t above calling his younger self “pretty.” For someone who has lost a lot of people along the way (all three of his main neighborhood friends died young, as did his mother), Pacino seems confused by the concept of age, as if the fact that he still has so much energy This point in life should have stopped the clock somewhere along the way. But even now he knows what wakes him up in the morning. “If you’re a certain type of person, these things keep us going,” he says, referring to his planned film adaptation of ” King Lear. “These passion projects literally keep us alive.”