21 Facts About the Bold Al Pacino Who’s Been Living by His Own Rules for 80 Years

Michael Corleone from The Godfather, Tony Montana from Scarface, the Devil from The Devil’s Advocate, and many other roles played by Al Pacino have become iconic and will stay imprinted in the history of cinema forever.

Bright Side wants to share some moments from the life of the best Italian mafioso in cinema.

• He worked as a janitor and an assistant waiter to pay for his acting classes.
• At the beginning of his career, he performed as a stand-up comic.
• At the age of 20, the actor was arrested and put in jail because police officers found a weapon in his car. Only after he spent 3 days in jail did the police figure out it was a stage prop.

A photo of Al Pacino taken by the Rhode Island police in 1961

• When he was 14 years old, Alfredo (“Al”) Pacino saw Chekhov’s play, The Seagull. It impressed him so much that he even got a сollection of stories written by Chekhov.
• This American actor studied in Lee Strasberg’s Actors Studio and prefers to play in accordance with Stanislavski’s teachings.
• Al Pacino’s career changed after he took part in The Goodfather. Movie critics left excellent reviews for the film and in 1973, it won several Oscars. And even though Al Pacino was nominated for an Oscar, he decided to boycott the ceremony because he got the nomination for Best Supporting Actor and not Best Actor.
• Jack Nicholson and Robert De Niro also tried out for the part of Michael Corleone. But the director, Francis Ford Coppola, preferred to see Al Pacino in this role.

• Al Pacino, who played the role of Michael Corleone, is actually connected to the town of Corleone in Sicily. His grandparents came to the US from there.

• Al Pacino was nominated for an Oscar 8 times, but he only won the award once for his role in Scent of a Woman in 1993.

• Al Pacino is the first actor in history who won an Oscar for Best Actor and was nominated for Best Supporting Actor at the same time.
• The actor often refused to play the parts that have since become iconic. For example, he was offered to take part in movies like Star Wars, Pretty Woman, Kramer vs. Kramer, Die Hard, and Taxi Driver.

• Initially, The Devil’s Advocate was supposed to be more of an action movie and a blockbuster. Al Pacino didn’t like that, so he refused to take part in the project 3 times until the plot was modified. But the actor still had some doubts. To finally persuade him, Keanu Reeves donated $2 million from his salary in Al Pacino’s favor.

• The actor is a big fan of Shakespeare. In 1996, he even made his directorial debut with the movie Looking for Richard based on the play Richard III. The main role was also played by Alfredo himself.

• Al Pacino’s favorite poet is Oscar Wilde. He believes that he and this English author have a lot in common.

• He has never been officially married and has only ever been at the altar in his films.

• Al Pacino was supposed to voice the character of El Macho in the movie Despicable Me 2. But a couple of months before the premiere, he refused to participate in the project due to creative differences.

• Al Pacino has his own studio called Chal Production. The first part of its name consists of 2 parts. “Ch” serves as the first letters of his friend and acting teacher, Charles Laughton who’s a co-founder of this company. And “Al” is the name of the actor himself.
• The actor loves the opera.
• His first child was born 6 months before the actor turned 50. He became a father a second time only 11 years later. In 2001, the actress Beverly D’Angelo gave birth to twins.

• In 2019, a film called The Irishman was released. Al Pacino and Robert De Niro played the main characters in it. The film cost $159 million to produce and a significant amount was spent to make the actors look younger with the help of computer technology.
• Al Pacino has been nominated for Golden Globe Awards 18 times and received 4 of them for Best Actor.

Al Pacino’s realistic transformations in his movies always leave us stunned. Which of Pacino’s roles do you like the most and why?