Al Pacino Quotes - Page 6

Did you know I started out as a stand-up comic? People don't believe me when I tell them. That's how I saw myself, in comedy.

I've often said there's two kinds of actors. There's a more gregarious type and the shy type.

I am more alive in the theater than anywhere else, but what I take into the theater I get from the streets.

Whether he's doing great acting or not, you're seeing somebody who is in the tradition of a great actor. What he does with it, that's something else, but he's got it all. The talent, the instrument is there, that's why he has endured.

My movies are always being played on television, I'm very well known and all that stuff - I go all over the world, I have access to many things, many people, many places and it's wonderful. But now I'm at a point where...I thought it was time to show some of it, to show some of my feelings about things and what I preferred at the time. I prefer them still but not to the extent I did at the time.

I've never cared for guns. In fact, when I did 'Scent of a Woman' I had to learn how to assemble one.

You take a guy like George Clooney who goes out there to Darfur, and gets things done! That's magical. He's done a great thing.

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.

Acting is hard work. At times, it's very energizing and enervating. It's childish. It's also responsible. It's illuminating, enriching, joyful, drab. It's bizarre, diabolical. It's exciting.

I do believe, and I will always believe, that Shakespeare on film is really something that should be tried more often because it is an opportunity to take the humanity that Shakespeare writes into characters and express it.

I didn't go for the needle at all. I never cared for drugs, because I saw what they did to most people. I thought that was the end of the road.

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.

Women have always had equal importance onstage, and working with them must have altered my sensibilities. I've never felt sensitive to the whole issue, because being macho has never been a problem with me.

The interesting thing about this is I don't know what my vision [ in Salome the play and Salomaybe] is yet about. I'm sensing something and I'm going along with it. It reminds me of a painting, the way Jackson Pollack painted - Jackson Pollack, the great, great artist.

I didn't want the book [of memoirs] out, naturally - Larry [Grobel] knew that for 20 years, 15 at least, I didn't want anything written about me. Then, you know, things happen, finally it's OK and I trust Larry. Nothing about it is salacious in any way.

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.

Shakespeare is one of the reasons I've stayed an actor. Sometimes I spend full days doing Shakespeare by myself, just for the joy of reading it, saying those words... I do Shakespeare when I am feeling a certain way.

One of the things that made me want to be an actor more than ever was seeing a Chekhov play, "The Sea Gull," when was 14 in the Bronx.

I'm always on a red carpet . . . the other day I thought, this ain't bad. You can meet people on it.

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

I used to think of myself as a comedian. I've always admired comedians. Their minds, the way in which they se the world is so striking, the way they juxtapose things, the way they can see humor in people. There's a liberation in that.

I haven't encouraged [Julia Marie Pacino] or discouraged her. I let her go her own way. I did say to her that I thought that she had a real gift, and it's a good idea to know that. It's always good to go with your gift.

The actor becomes an emotional athlete. The process is painful - my personal life suffers.

When I was younger, I would go to auditions to have the opportunity to audition, which would mean another chance to get up there and try out my stuff, or try out what I learned and see how it worked with an audience, because where are you gonna get an audience?