Oscar-winning actor and filmmaker Al Pacino has kept movie-lovers rooted since the mid-70s with roles in films such as Dog Day Afternoon, The God Father, Scent of a Woman, and Dick Tracy. Born on 25th April 1940, he has a career extending for over five decades winning many awards and nominations including Primetime Emmy Awards, an Academy Award, and two Tony Awards.
Al Pacino began pursuing acting in his teenage age and finally made his way from the stage to the large screen. Being a versatile performer, he has starred in numerous and diverse projects during his career. Al Pacino was contracted with a talent agency, but in 1971 he was offered a break for being a heroin addict in the movie The Panic in Needle Park.
Mr. Pacino is a great actor who influenced a lot of people and the Godfather movie is considered one of the best movies ever created. In 2020, Al Pacino was featured as Meyer Offerman, who is a fictional Nazi hunter- Amazon Video series Hunters. This was his first television series since Angels in America (2003). We have compiled the best inspiring and funny Al Pacino Quotes.
Al Pacino Quotes
1. “I don’t regret anything. I feel like I’ve made what I would call mistakes. I picked the wrong movie, or I didn’t pursue a character, but everything you do is part of you and you get something from it.”– Al Pacino
2. “I’m constantly striving to break through to something new. You try to maintain a neutral approach to your work, and not be too hard on yourself.”– Al Pacino
3. “My first language was shy. It’s only by having been thrust into the limelight that I have learned to cope with my shyness.”– Al Pacino
4. “The hardest thing about being famous is that people are always nice to you. You’re in a conversation and everybody’s agreeing with what you’re saying – even if you say something totally crazy. You need people who can tell you what you don’t want to hear.”– Al Pacino
5. “When my mother got home from work, she would take me to the movies. It was her way of getting out, and she would take me with her. I’d go home and act all the parts. It had a tremendous influence on my becoming an actor.”– Al Pacino
6. “On any given Sunday you’re gonna win or you’re gonna lose. The point is – can you win or lose like a man?”– Al Pacino
7. “Forget the career, do the work. If you feel what you are doing is on line and you’re going someplace and you have a vision and you stay with it, eventually things will happen.”– Al Pacino
8. “I was playing a part of someone dealing dope on a street corner – and there was a guy actually dealing heroin right there. I looked at him, he looked at me, and I got real confused.”– Al Pacino
9. “It used to worry me what people said about me. I’m learning not to worry as much. Sometimes you feel critics are wrong all the time, but I don ’t take objection to it, because that’s the way it goes. They can be wrong, they can be right. They can be cruel, they can be kind.”– Al Pacino
10. “The truth is, you know, we need our anodynes. You know that word, anodynes? We need that in life some times. A good warm bath can be one for you, or a whatever.”– Al Pacino
11. “I want to be a great actor someday, and I’ve decided there’s no use philosophizing; the only way is to work at my craft.”– Al Pacino
12. “I don’t think actors should ever expect to get a role, because the disappointment is too great. You’ve got to think of things as an opportunity. An audition’s an opportunity to have an audience.”– Al Pacino
13. “There are many things my father taught me here in this room. He taught me: keep your friends close, but your enemies closer.”– Al Pacino
14. “You need some insecurity if you’re an actor. It keeps the pot boiling. I haven’t yet started to think about retiring. I was shocked when I heard about Paul Newman retiring at age 82. Most actors just fade away like old soldiers.”– Al Pacino
15. “In America most everybody who’s Italian is half Italian. Except me. I’m all Italian. I’m mostly Sicilian, and I have a little bit of Neapolitan in me. You get your full dose with me.”– Al Pacino
16. “My grandmother always came to my shows. She was always concerned about the way I dressed – even later on, when I was well known and I supported her.”– Al Pacino
17. “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.”– Al Pacino
18. “Playing a character is an illusion, and I feel that when you know too much about a person, possibly part of that illusion is disrupted.”– Al Pacino
19. “I am more alive in the theatre than anywhere else, but what I take into the theatre I get from the streets.”– Al Pacino
20. “The problem with me is, I guess, the way I express myself, you have to be with me 50 years before you can get a sense of what I’m talking about.”– Al Pacino
21. “They say we die twice – once when the last breath leaves our body and once when the last person we know says our name.”– Al Pacino
22. “My best advice to any young person is, if you want kids, be careful who you have them with. That’s my mantra.”– Al Pacino
23. “My weaknesses… I wish I could come up with something. I’d probably have the same pause if you asked me what my strengths are. Maybe they’re the same thing.’– Al Pacino
24. “Everything changes with age. The parts change with age, your feelings about them change, roles that I would’ve wanted to play 10 years ago, I don’t want to play now.”– Al Pacino
25. “I don’t understand the hatred and fear of gays and bisexuals and lesbians… it’s a concept I honestly cannot grasp. To me, it’s not who you love… a man, a woman, what have you… it’s the fact that you love. That is all that truly matters.”– Al Pacino
26. “I’m not a violent person, never was, but I have this temperament that I’ve always displayed. I guess it has to do with my tradition and being Italian, we’re very outgoing with our emotions.”– Al Pacino
27. “Explain to me what Italian-American culture is. We’ve been here 100 years. Isn’t Italian-American culture American culture? That’s because we’re so diverse, in terms of intermarriage.’– Al Pacino
28. “My dad was in the army. World War II. He got his college education from the army. After World War II he became an insurance salesman. Really, I didn’t know my dad very well. He and my mother split up after the war. I was raised by my maternal grandmother and grandfather, and by my mother.”– Al Pacino
29. “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.”– Al Pacino
30. “The actor becomes an emotional athlete. The process is painful – my personal life suffers.”– Al Pacino
31. “I used to wear disguises, like hats and false beards, just to walk around and avoid attention.”– Al Pacino
32. “I found out how temperamental I am, yes. And that sometimes that can be kind of off-putting.”– Al Pacino
33. “I don’t talk politics and I don’t talk philosophy or anything like that, but if you look at my work, you might get an expression of me as a person.”– Al Pacino
34. “I learned to wrestle, I learned defensive fighting at a young age, because when someone hit me, I would throw up and fall down.”– Al Pacino
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35. “Sometimes you’re fighting corporations and forget that people can talk to each other.”– Al Pacino
36. “I’m an actor, not a star. Stars are people who live in Hollywood and have heart-shaped swimming pools.”– Al Pacino
37. “Sometimes it’s better to be with the devil you know than the angel you didn’t know.”– Al Pacino
38. “It would be hard to play a character you don’t like – for me anyway – or can’t find something in them to like.”– Al Pacino
39. “I want to be a great actor someday, and I’ve decided there’s no use philosophizing; the only way is to work at my craft.”– Al Pacino
40. “Actually, the person I related to was James Dean. I grew up with the Dean thing. Rebel Without A Cause had a very powerful effect on me.”– Al Pacino
41. “It surprised me, the feeling I got when I won the Oscar for ‘Scent of a Woman.’ It was a new feeling. I’d never felt it. I don’t see my Oscar much now. But when I first got it, there was a feeling for weeks afterward that I guess is akin to winning a gold medal in the Olympics.’– Al Pacino
42. “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.”– Al Pacino
43. “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.”– Al Pacino
44. “That’s where humour lives for me. In the body. The Steve Martin kind of stuff or Jim Carrey, that’s what I like. I’ve always felt that’s what I would like to do.”– Al Pacino
45. “The problem with me is, I guess, the way I express myself, you have to be with me 50 years before you can get a sense of what I’m talking about.”– Al Pacino
46. “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.”– Al Pacino
47. “The camera can film my face but until it captures my soul, you don’t have a movie.”– Al Pacino
48. ” I come from the South Bronx – a true descendant of the melting pot. I grew up in a really mixed neighborhood; it was a very integrated life.”– Al Pacino
49. “There has been a lot of self-doubt and unwelcome events in my life.”– Al Pacino
50. “I hope the perception is that I’m an actor, I never intended to be a movie star.”– Al Pacino
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Video: Al Pacino Breaks Down 4 of His Most Iconic Characters
In this fun interview with GQ Magazine, watch as Al Pacino breaks down four of his most iconic roles, including his characters in ‘Serpico,’ ‘Dog Day Afternoon,’ ‘The Godfather’ and ‘Scarface.’
Summary of Al Pacino
Al Pacino is a great movie actor who has featured in some of the best movies ever created including “Godfather.” Having studied acting at the age of 19, he had mastered his skills and was always the standout in any film characters. He is one of the few performers who has received the Triple Crown of Acting. which is an industry term for someone who as achieved the highest accolades recognized by American Film, TV and Theatre – the Academy Award, Emmy Award, and Tony Award
His career has been decorated with awards and his quotes are nothing less of the best. The above Al Pacino quotes will inspire you to be courageous and tackle everyday challenges with a new level of confidence.
Image Credit: Embajada de EEUU en la Argentina, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
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