I never saw myself as a director. It's certainly a second language but making movies for 40 years, you pick stuff up. However, this style of making movies, this documentary style, is easier for me because I gather a lot of material and with an editor, write it on screen. You try to write based on what you shot.

Al Pacino

Categorized in : Years Writing Editors

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.

make-out unconscious painting

[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.

oscars house kids

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.

artist play interesting

It's so funny when people who are not used to making movies get into it. You just can't believe how insufferably boring it is. Waiting around and doing these lines over and over and finally having to go in and loop the lines and dub them.

waiting-around believe people

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.

kind grandfather joy

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.

escaping coping way

Great directors can understand the staging in such a way that can make a scene come alive. Others have a certain way of pacing the scene.

alive directors way

Chekhov was as important to me as anybody as a writer. by Al Pacino

Chekhov was as important to me as anybody as a writer.

chekhov important

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.

eras actors air

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.

play television thinking

I personally think if you're given four months instead of four weeks on a play, with the people who want to work that way, the play will invariably be different and stronger, and much more fulfilling and richer on all counts. There's no doubt in my mind about it.

play people thinking

There are people whose sense of reality is very strong, who have a sense of honesty. Lee Strasberg is like that, my grandfather was like that. These are the kinds of men I've had close relationships with.

honesty strong reality

I'm always on a red carpet . . . the other day I thought, this ai... by Al Pacino

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

carpet red people

I’ve always been in the theater. I’ve always gone to it. That’s been my way to cope. Early on in my career, I remember running - fleeing - to the theater as a way of coping with all the meshugaas that was going on for me.

fleeing careers running

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

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

learning education school

Drinking and smoking grass were a part of my life as far back as... by Al Pacino

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

drinking smoking remember

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.

projects studios interest

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.

actors sea play

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.

actors stuff opportunity

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.

hate artist age