Fresh Air - Al Pacino Looks Back On A Legendary Career

Episode Date: November 4, 2024

Oscar-winning actor Al Pacino talks with Terry Gross about growing up in the South Bronx with a single mother, getting his start in Greenwich Village performing in avant-garde theater, nearly dying of COVID, and his life today. We'll also talk about The Godfather, and why he almost passed on Part II. His new memoir is Sonny Boy.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Okay, so does this sound like you? You love NPR's podcasts, you wish you could get more of all your favorite shows, and you want to support NPR's mission to create a more informed public. If all that sounds appealing, then it is time to sign up for the NPR Plus bundle. Learn more at plus.npr.org. This is Fresh Air. I'm Terry Gross. My guest today is Al Pacino. Don't ask me about my business, Kate. Is it true?

Don't ask me about my business. No! Well I'm going to ask Pacino about his business, by which I mean his art. It sounded like a shot to me. It did, I know. It's you slamming the table. Oh, as long as it's not a gun. I've had enough of those. So I'm gonna talk to Peccino about his remarkable performance in the Godfather films and other films. We'll also talk about his life. He's written a new memoir called Sunny Boy, which is the name his mother used to call him. It spans his life from the days he grew up in the South Bronx, raised by a single mother, with little money, to falling in love with the language of the great playwrights Strindberg,

Chekhov, and Shakespeare, getting his start in avant-garde theater in Greenwich Village, surprising himself by becoming a movie star, nearly dying from COVID, and all the ups and downs along the way. In case you need to be reminded, some of his now classic films include Dog Day Afternoon, Serpico, and Scarface. Although he starred along with Robert De Niro in Godfather II, they never had a scene together, but they were together in Heat and more recently in Martin Scorsese's film The Irishman. Pacino won an Oscar for his performance in Scent of a Woman. He won an Emmy for his performance in the HBO adaptation of the play Angels in America playing Roy Cohn. He starred in the film adaptation of David Mamet's Pulitzer Prize-winning play, Glengarry Glen Ross,

and later starred in a Broadway revival of the show but in a different role. Al Pacino, welcome to Fresh Air. So exciting to have you here. Thank you. I'm very happy to be here. I want to get to a lot of your life. I want to start by talking about the Godfather. So I want to start with a scene from the first Godfather film. You've begun your transformation into the killer Michael, into the crime family Michael. You know, you start coming home from the military, you don't want any part of the crime family, but then you're kind of pulled in after your father is shot. So here's a scene from Godfather 1. You've begun your transformation into

the hardened Michael. Your father's still alive, but Michael is preparing to take over from him. And you have become so hard and like you hardly blink in some scenes, including this one. So you're with Mo Green, a Vegas casino owner, kind of modeled on Bugsy Siegel. And the Corleone family has helped back him. Also in the scene is Michael's older brother but not very bright brother, Fredo, played by John Cazale and the family lawyer Tom, played by Robert Duvall. Mo Green is played by Alex Rocco. You speak first.

The Corleone family wants to buy you out. The Corleone family wants to buy me out. No, I buy you out. You don't buy me out. Your casino loses money. Maybe we can do better. You think I'm skimming off the top, Mike? You're unlucky. You damn guineas really make me laugh. I'd do you a favor and take Freddie in when you're having a bad time, and then you try to push me out.

Wait a minute. You took Freddie in because you're having a bad time, and then you try to push me out. Wait a minute. You took Freddie in because the Corleone family bankrolled your casino because the Molinari family on the coast guaranteed his safety. Now, we're talking business. Let's talk business. Yeah, let's talk business, Mike. First of all, you're all done. The Corleone family don't even have that kind of muscle anymore. The Godfather is sick, right?

You're getting chased out of New York by Barzini and the other families. What do you think is going on here? You think you can come to my hotel and take over? I talked to Barzini. I can make a deal with him and spill keep my hotel. Is that why you slapped my brother around in public? Oh, no, that was nothing, Mike. Now, Moe didn't mean nothing by that.

Sure, he flies off the handle once in a while, but Moe and me were good friends, right, Moe? I got a business to run. I gotta kick asses sometimes to make a run right. We had a little argument Friday night, so I had to straighten him out. You straighten my brother out? He was banging cocktail waitresses two at a time.

Players couldn't get a drink at the table. What's wrong with you? I leave for New York tomorrow. Think about a time. Players couldn't get a drink at the table. What's wrong with you? I leave for New York tomorrow. Think about a price. Do you know who I am? I'm Mo Green. I made my bones when you were going out with cheerleaders. Wait a minute, Mo. Mo, I get an idea. Tom, Tom, you're the concilier, and you can talk to the Don, you can explain... Just a minute.

Don is semi-retired and Mike is in charge're the concierge. Now you can talk to the Don, you can explain... Just a minute now. Don is semi-retired and Mike is in charge of the family business now. If you have anything to say, say it to Michael. Mike! You don't come to Las Vegas and talk to a man like Mo Green like that! Fredo, you're my older brother and I love you. But don't ever take sides with anyone against the family again. I just love that scene so much. Yeah.

It's interesting on radio too. It works. Just hearing it and not seeing it. Does it work though? Yeah, it does. Yeah. It really does. I was thinking maybe they'll do The Godfather on radio someday.

That's a great idea. You know, I interviewed Michael Caine years ago and the great actor Michael Caine and he was saying when you're playing a powerful person, you don't wave your hands around because when you have the power, people are looking at your every subtle gesture. They're trying to read you, they're trying to stay in your good graces and stay safe. And so weak people move their hands around, powerful people don't. When we started talking, you were moving around a lot.

So I'm thinking, was it hard for you to be as still as Michael is when he is exerting his power? Because he knows how to not be still when he needs to, but he can be very still and very opaque and very threatening at the same time. I know, I don't know how I did that. I was wondering. I don't know till this day what possessed me. You literally like don't blink in that scene. I think you blinked at once. How do you do that? Well, I was in the situation, as they say, and I guess it came to me, you know,

because things like that happen if you, you know, stay the course, meaning if you are with whoever you are when you're playing it and Your instincts are operating I guess I was lucky and I just went in that direction and I didn't do it consciously you were nearly fired from the movie after the Opening scene and and you write in the book that the opening scene was such a stupid scene For the addition because Michael is to so like Not a part of the family. He doesn't really know who he is. Yeah, his future is uncharted and he's naive

so Yeah, judgment was off on picking that scene. I think because it's a scene of you know quasi Exposition so when when you're going through it, what are you supposed to do? He's just describing to his girlfriend Kay, who later becomes his wife, like who's here and who his family is and who they've helped kill. I know. All these wonderful people auditioned. I remember them all, all of us, the young actors just doing that scene. And I thought, well, what can they see from that? But somehow I was the lucky one

because Francis always wanted me before there was a script. Francis Ford Coppola. Yeah, he always wanted me to play Michael. That was in his vision. Even though it wasn't in mine, I'll tell you that. I thought he might be making a mistake. I thought... You thought he was kidding and it was maybe a phony phone call. Well, I did think when he called me and told me that he was given the Godfather to direct,

because I knew him like a year before that, where I went out to San Francisco to do something with him and I saw where he worked and the the the zoetrope that with Spielberg there and Lucas and all those De Palma and all those 70s filmmakers that were about to explode on the scene and I had met them in San Francisco and he was Getting to know me for another role He was doing it in a movie that he wrote love story Which never got off the ground and I went back to New York and I hadn't heard from him in about a year And then he called me and I said oh Francis I I spent some time with him, three or four

days so I got to know him a little bit. And I thought, this guy's got something very special. And he called me and told me he had the Godfather. I thought, now he's gone too far. I thought, what life can do to you, you know? Now he's fantasizing things. So I said, okay, I went along with it. But after a while, I started to think, wait a minute, I think

Paramount is pretty smart to pick this guy, because this guy knows his stuff, and it's an Italian-American, he understands it somewhere they picked him and you know he had won an Oscar already for the script of Patton the George C Scott film that was so wonderful and so he already was starting to establish himself in Hollywood and then I started to think maybe he is going to do it. But when he said he wanted me to play Michael, then I thought, oh, he's really in a fantasy. So you start with Robert De Niro in Godfather II, but you're not in any scenes together because he's of a different generation from before you were born. And however, you do have scenes together in Heat

and also in The Irishman. And I wanna play a great scene from The Irishman. Sure. Okay. So here's a scene with you and De Niro toward the end of the film. And you've just gotten out of prison. He plays Frank Sheeran. And Frank Sheeran is somebody who got very connected to the mob and then he became, you played Jimmy Hoffa, the head of the Teamsters Union, he became

your bodyguard. So in this scene, you've only recently gotten out of prison. There was a big kind of ceremony in your honor. And then De Niro, as Frank Sheeran comes up to you and explains that, basically that your time's up, that the mob wants you out of the Teamsters, out of the leadership position that you want to return to. But you're both talking between the lines. You're not coming right out and saying anything.

You're talking between the lines. It's a great scene, you ping-pong back and forth, so let's hear it. It starts with De Niro. Tony told the old man to tell me, to tell you. It's what it is. What it is? It's what it is. Please listen to me. They wouldn't dare. They wouldn't dare. Please Frank, come on.

Don't say they wouldn't dare. No, don't tell me that kind of... that's fairy tale. Don't say they wouldn't, Dad. Please tell me. Something funny happens to me. They're done. You understand that? And they know it.

Because I got files, I got proof. I got records, I got tapes. Anytime I want, they'll be gone. These g***s spend the rest of their lives in jail. And they know it. They know it. What you're saying is what they're concerned about? What I'm saying is I know things.

I know things. They don't know I know. Please, I can just... Do you want to take that chance? What chance am I? Why should I be taking a chance? They're saying this is it. They're saying this is it and then it's it?

Jimmy, I'm trying to tell you something. I know you are. You're telling me they're threatening me and I got to do what they say, which is absolutely. But it's more of a threat. It's the bottom line. Bottom line. It's what it is. They do something to me, I do something to them. That's all I know. I don't know anything else to you. You don't get it that De Niro's telling you they're gonna kill you and they do. Yeah. So you and De Niro are both such intense actors, you're of the same generation. So when you're working together do you have a similar style of either preparing or like does one of you want like a thousand takes and another one of you only want one you know like what are your commonalities in your clashes when

you're working together I see I see you all just commonalities there you know it's like we've been doing this for many years and even when we did Heat together and Bob said to me when it's a scene just between the two guys if you remember in Heat and he he said to me let's not rehearse I said okay let's not So I went to the scene and Michael Mann approved of not rehearsing. And I thought it was a good idea because these two guys didn't know each other. So, and we sort of knew our words, but so what if we didn't? We were there and it went on. And that's the scene. And it worked.

Because it worked because we were meeting for the first time in the movie. Right. It's interesting. I was already rehearsing and he said, let's try now rehearsing. Let's just do it that way. See what happens. And I feel he was really right.

So we have that kind of freedom with each other because we know each other from years of working and yeah, he's so easy to work with, Bob. He just, anything you do or say, he's there. He hears it So you grew up in the South Bronx you hung out with a pretty tough crowd Yeah, and you still like jump from rooftop to rooftop. Oh, yeah, we were wild you threw trash down Be on the rooftop and throw trash down on Saturday night Well, we on Saturday nights from young men with their dates. Yeah

Yeah, we would go there to like let us at them and stuff. And they always wanted to kill us, but they couldn't catch us. We would do it on occasion, on occasion. We didn't do it a lot, but when we did, I remember it. Where was the fun in doing that? God only knows, because somebody else was doing it. That's what we... It was something we were all doing together, like we were in an orchestra. We just would go up there and like part of growing up where I was, was being chased.

That was the fun of everything. Chased by who? Well, anybody that we screwed around with. And, you know, that's how we've, we did, we didn't only do these things, I'm sorry, they stand out from time to time, but I remember my childhood is running. At least three of your closest friends died of drug-related deaths with a heroin overdose?

Yeah. How did you manage to avoid that yourself? Well, I believe my mother. My mother just was there, and she just, no way. There's scenes in the book that reflect that. It was just territory there in the South Bronx. We were, they were calling me late at night on a school night and to come on out, you know, who knows what they were going to be doing. I think it's in the book too. And they call up and my mother just said no.

And I was so angry with her. You know, all these things come back to you and you finally, I remember when, about 30 years ago, I'm in my house in New York. I was in a, I had a house there and I'm shaving to go to an event that's I'm getting an award of some sort and I was thinking about what am I gonna say you know. So I started thinking and then it just dawns on me I'm shaving. I see my face in the mirror, and I thought,

you're here because of your mother. What's the matter with you? I said, it's true. So I had this realization at age 52 that my mother was everything, you know. How old was she when she died? Did she get to see you be successful? No. My grandfather and my mother saw me. They both died before I became successful. Yep. Your parents divorced before you were two. When you were around eight months old,

you were taken away from your mother. No. I think I was a year and a half half and I stayed with them for eight months. You stayed with your grandparents? Yeah. My father's mother and father. And you say at least you were placed with family and not a foster home. Why were you taken away from your mother? I would imagine. Of course, I'm not very clear on that.

I learned that after my mother had died from relatives that came to see me on Broadway. And I just, it was just a revelation. And then, you know, a bulb went off in my head and I thought, uh-oh, there it is. That's why I do some of the things I do. Like what? I don't know. Like the behavior I had and the way I was and life and that started me. I went into therapy for the next 40 years.

After finding out about that? Trauma. It's just trauma, you know. Trauma, we all have trauma. Trauma you didn't even know you had. It's interesting. Yeah, I didn't. But that doesn't mean it didn't affect you. Of course. So I know that my grandmother on my father's side raised me to the point where my grandmother and grandfather she had visitation rights in the divorce papers, she found out, and she was simply the most wonderful person. I think I went there when I was a year and a half. That's tough stuff. So we need to take a short break here.

So let me introduce you. My guest is Al Pacino and he's written a new memoir called Sunny Boy. We'll be right back after a short break. I'm Terry Gross and this is Fresh Air. If you listen on the regular to the Fresh Air podcast, then I know you'll love some of the other NPR podcasts too. Here's

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Support for this podcast comes from the Neubauer Family Foundation, supporting WHYY's Fresh Air and its commitment to sharing ideas and encouraging meaningful conversation. This is Fresh Air. I'm Terri Gross. Let's get back to my interview with Al Pacino. He has a new memoir called Sunny Boy. When we left off, we were talking about growing up in the South Bronx with his grandparents and single mother. There was a point where your mother was crying and kissing you all over and you were very young and you weren't understanding What's up? Why is this happening? And then you return home and you see there's an ambulance in front of the building and it's your mother who they're there for

Was that did she attempt to? Die by suicide. Yeah Yes, how old are? I was about six. Did it register on you what had happened? Did you comprehend it? I couldn't quite. At six I knew something was up and I was, you know, I lived with my grandmother and grandfather and my mother and I Remember they're all sitting at a table. I think this was after the war so my uncle would be there My my aunt would be there everybody was talking about what to do and I remember sitting there and they let me sit there So I didn't quite understand what they were saying, but I knew it was a serious thing.

And, uh, but, you know, she came back and, uh, yeah. That must have been traumatizing too. Leaving on, seeing her in the street, somebody said to me as I'm running to see the ambulance, you know, we rarely saw ambulances coming on our block and I saw it and there she was on a stretcher going into the ambulance and I thought, because I couldn't believe it was my mother, these things don't happen to my mother, you know, and it was her because they said, hey, I hear it's your mother sonny, it's your mother, mother, my mother, you know. And it was her, because they said, hey, I hear it's your mother, Sonny. It's your mother, mother. My mother? I said, no, nothing happens to my mother.

And I remember that feeling. And then the shock of seeing her in that, it was, as they say, surreal. But it's clear in my memory. Yeah. She must have loved movies because she took you to the movies when you were... Oh, she loved everything. My mother was very smart. She was, she read and had played the piano and I mean very poor of course, but she was very intelligent. And my mother decided to go to the theater and take me to Broadway shows, among other things.

But she loved Cat on a Hot Toon Roof and those kind of shows. She was very into... She took you to see, when you were five, she took you to see The Lost Weekend starring Raymond Landis, this like raging alcoholic. It's a great film, but he, you know, he gets very self-destructive. And I don't know, you were five and then you started acting out those scenes at home.

Yeah, I started acting out those scenes. Yeah, I would act all the time. When mom took me to the movies, I'd come back, because we lived alone and there was nobody there to play with. So I'd act out all the parts in the films I saw. And I acted out The Lost Weekend and I showed it to my mother. My mother said, oh, what is this? And they started laughing. And then she'd show it to the families or when I was somewhere they'd say, Sonny, do the last weekend. And I would do the last weekend. And I never understood why they would laugh at someone in this predicament because it's where he's searching for a bottle

of booze that he hid somewhere when he was sober and now he couldn't find it. And when he was drunk and now he can't find it. And when he was drunk and now he can't find it and he goes crazy opening drawers and so on. I love doing that. I think it's a memory and they would be laughing and I would say why are they laughing to myself? Do you understand now? I sort of do. It's kind of funny to see a five-year-old playing an adult in crisis. Yeah, an adult in crisis. He was totally disillusioned. With real commitment I was right there.

You became an actor. Yes. Yeah and you fell in with Avangard Theatre which I didn't know until reading the book. But even before that you'd fallen in love with Strindberg and Chekhov and Shakespeare. Oh, God, yes. I was curious, like, as a teenager, before you were really deeply involved with theater, although you did go to the high school in performing arts. Yes.

So can you recite a few lines that really stuck with you and meant something important to you when you were in your teens? From one of those three, Strindberg, Chekhov, Shakespeare. I, oh boy, I feel like I'm an auditioned. You're gonna be graded. I don't know what that would be.

Oh, that was from a play I did called The King and I. Whenever I feel afraid, I hold my head erect, whistle a happy tune. So no one will suspect I'm afraid. The other one was, I guess, somewhere I have never traveled, gladly beyond any experience. Your eyes have their silence, and your most frail gesture are things which enclose me, or which I cannot touch because they are too near. Something your look will easily unclose me, though I have closed myself as fingers. You open always me.

Pedal by pedal as spring opens, touching skillfully, mysteriously, her first rose. I do not know what it is about you that opens and closes. I only know that the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses, nobody, not even the rain, has such small hands. Ah, there it is. It's impromptu. What was that from? That's E.E. Cummings. Oh, okay. So you sang a few bars of Whistle a Happy Tune. Yeah. I was in The King and I, and so I remember it.

I was surprised to read that you were in musicals. I never heard you sing until this very moment. I was offered a musical. What was it? A big one. Sort of, what's the big movie they made? Zorba the Greek, yes. They did Zorba and I was offered it to play the Alan Bates role. It was Anthony Quinn and Alan Bates. They wanted me to play the Bates role on Broadway, Hal Prince, because he saw me in Indian Wants the Bronx, so he asked me if I would come in and audition.

So I had to go with somebody who's actually turned out to be Marvin Hamlisch, and I didn't know at the time, and he wasn't well known at the time. And I would go to his house, his apartment in Brooklyn with his mother and father, and I would practice, you know, with him. I never said anything to him. I just went in there practiced. So there was a place that Mary Martin was on Broadway doing something, some play. I forget. And then it was a kind of innovation. They had the piano on stage, but hidden by curtains. So that's where I auditioned for Hal Prince after working with Marvin Hamlisch. And I went into the theater towards, and I auditioned with the song from Guys and Dolls, which is,

from Guys and Dolls, which is, luck be a lady tonight, you know. And I started on doing it. And Marvin, Hamlish was supposed to be there. But I looked around and I didn't see the piano or anything. And I said, you know, to the folks out there, I was auditioning with this guy who was teaching me how to sing. But I don't think he's not here now."

I said, so I don't know, and all of a sudden I heard him yelling from behind the curtain in the back, I'm here, I'm here. So I thought, oh, I have to go through with this audition now. So I sang, you know, and forgot all the words. And I remember leaving, and it wasn't a good audition, if you know what I mean. And I remember leaving with him, and he said to me, you know, I thought you would maybe forget some of the lines, but you forgot all of the lines. He was mad. I said, well, I don't know.

I'm just not used to it, I guess. But anyway, they gave me the part. Well, let's take a break here and then we'll talk some more. If you're just joining us, my guest is Al Pacino. He has a new memoir, and it's called Sunny Boy. We'll be right back. This is Fresh Air. Studies have shown that elections can spike feelings of stress and anxiety.

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Let's get back to my interview with Al Pacino. He's written a new memoir. It's called Sunny Boy. You were gonna turn down the role in Godfather 2. Well, the only reason I role in Godfather 2. Well the only reason I stayed in Godfather 1 is, I mean you would quit if you were in it. When everybody's over there giggling at what you're doing, you know, and the whispers on the set. I said, I don't want to be here. I said, I don't like being around people who don't want me around. I've never

been that way. I just sort of shy off. I don't want to be there. But for Godfather 2, I mean, Godfather 1 was already a success. Oh yeah, Godfather 2. Mario Puzo comes up to you with the script that he'd written and he said, this is crap. Yes, he said, I just want you to know before you read it, they want to do it, this is crap. And I read it and he was right it was it was not good and so I I just thought well I and they kept upping the ante they kept giving me more money but I kept saying but I don't want to do it and then finally when Francis because Francis wasn't on the project so Francis got on the project and He cut them off at about seven hundred thousand he said no he doesn't want money he wants a good script Stop giving him the money Wait, so did it was the script rewritten?

Yeah, well, he wrote this is a great script. Oh, I know it was a great Yeah with with Mario and partially it was almost done but me and Charlie still didn't think certain things were right. So me and Charlie went out to San Francisco and we said let's see if we can do this, you know, because and Francis did really a great job and he just, and we just worked with him a little bit and I remember thinking that was a very memorable moment. You know, so then it was done I said yes and it was done, I said yes. And it was a tough shoot for me because I just don't know. It was a time in my life where it's hard to describe it without lying down on the couch. It was hard because of your personal life or? Of course, everything.

I guess where my drinking had gotten to, or all of it, I found myself in a state of mind that was difficult. I took Valium. Remember those days? Oh, you don't. Valium? Valium. I remember those days. Do you remember Valium?

Of course. I didn't take it, but certainly knew all about it. I mean, it was everywhere. There were jokes about it and dramas about it. It was like one of the first really popular anti-anxiety medications. Yeah. I took that and drag at the same time, which is a no-no. That's, yeah, that is. So I was a lucky boy. How did you manage to get through the film? You're so good at it. I mean, you're so good in the film. How did you manage?

Well, that's probably why I was so... But thank you for mentioning that. It just went very far. I went very far into it because I always thought by the end of Godfather 1, it looked like Michael was starting to become encased in whatever this thing took over him, you know, this place he went to to survive, to save his father's life and to continue his life. And it was a tough one. So, you know, because like I sort of see in Godfather 2 a man who's cutting himself off. He's had to emotionally shut down to do what he felt he needed to do.

Yes, yes. And become a monster. Yes. Did that have an impact on you? It had to. It had to. I've learned since when you play situations and people that are caught up in that web, it's best to be happy every day, sing cheery songs and then go on. It's actually true. I've known some actors, very good actors, who just say, nope, true. I've known some actors, very good actors, just say, nope, nope, I'm just doing my thing. They could be dancing and singing and then just go right to it. And at that time, I would do it now, of course I do it.

Yeah, the more difficult the role, the more, you know, and the more demanding the role, the more, you know, and the more demanding or whatever, you go the other way in your preparation. Because you got it all in you now. You know, I think just through experience and doing this, the saying goes, time keeps me green. You know, because when you are acting or that thing that we do and after a while it gets there into the body and into the it just it it becomes part of you and You don't have to act anymore

Let's take a break here, and then we'll talk some more if you're just joining us my guest is Al Pacino He has a new memoir, and it's called Sonny Boy. We'll be right back. This is fresh air as more. And it's called Sunny Boy. We'll be right back. This is fresh air. As we're all navigating a divisive election, no matter what happens, the question remains, how the heck are we going to move forward together? So in this season of the StoryCorps podcast from NPR, stories from people who made a choice to confront the conflicts in their own lives head on, and in sharing stories from the bravest among us, maybe we can take their lead and find some hope for the rest of us. Get the StoryCorps podcast wherever you listen.

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So you had to have surgery on your carotid artery I guess it was clogged? Oh god on both of them. Yeah both of them okay. Yeah I had four strokes. Oh it was not fun but at the same time it was diagnosed as something else and I thought I'm having some ocular migraines as it was but it wasn't it was something else TIA is and they're small they're sort of minor and then it was happening with frequency and it's the kind of a thing where all of a sudden you know you can't quite see and then you can't quite speak you you can't talk, put

words together. That's kind of scary when you're driving car. So I thought this is something and it went on for about a half hour to get... You had one of these TIA mini strokes while you were driving a car? Yeah, I did. Oh, it's lucky you survived that. Ah, lucky, yeah. I want to ask you about another medical event that almost killed you. This is like during the COVID thing. You almost died, you flatlined.

Well, that's what I thought I did. I was standing there, I had COVID, and I was getting, how do you call it? I was dehydrated, and so they were hydrating me. The next thing I know I'm opening my eyes and there's six paramedics in my living room and two doctors dressed like they're spacemen head to toe with all this stuff over them. Or protective gear to prevent COVID from spreading to them, yeah. Yes, I thought, what could this be?

I just thought, whoa. Do you live alone now? Yeah. How do you like it? I'm not crazy about it, but what's the alternative? I live in such a great place and such a good area and I have friends and that's good and I go out to dinners with people and and so I'm fine. What you do say in the book is that You thought you had experienced death. I sure did. I really did but what I mean it was like nothingness

It was I'm sorry to say that yeah, you didn't see you like a bright light You didn't feel like you were looking down at yourself from the sky or or the ceiling It was just like the absence of no. I saw Marvin Hamlisch playing a piano I get it. You get it. Yeah, I didn't see anything. I opened my eyes. I thought what happened? That's what I thought and then I saw this and you know, that's a new experience I never had that experience and then they started watching me and stuff, and the recovery and all. Whether you nearly died or just briefly unconscious.

Well, it did have an effect on me. Yeah, that's what I'm interested in. I do think exactly right. I do think about now more about death than I ever did before. And I think about what is this and how does one just understand it a little better? There's various ways, you know, and the best I think is not to think about it, but try that. But some people the answer is, oh, now I believe in God. For other people it is, you know. Well, I always believe in God. I mean, whatever that is, I always do. I always have. That's something that is whatever God is.

Did it make you any more or less afraid of death? I think I got a little more concerned about it, let's put it this way, or I wonder about it. You know, I'm in my 85th year, so that's there. You know, when you talk to people, it's there. It's got to be there. How could it not be there? Has it affected how you want to spend whatever time you have left? No. Whatever time I have left is, I don't think that way. I didn't mean like, oh, this is like the end, but I mean, like sometimes you rethink, like,

what do I want out of life at this stage of my life? Do I want to work more? Do I want to work less? Well, yes. You know, it's a question of appetite and desire to do what everybody does. Sometimes you have appetite to go home and look at the football game. But appetite to take on something as part of your history. I mean, I've been doing this my whole life. I can't think of anything else I would do. Sometimes you can't afford not to do it. So you go do something and you know like they say at AA, bring the body the mind will follow. So you go and say, I don't know that I want

to do this particular role, but it's a good role and I'll bring my body and my mind will follow. Once I start to work on it, those juices come and then the thing that goes along with it comes. That's how I see it. And if you're lucky, you read something and you want to do it, you have an appetite to do it. So there are very few things like that that have happened to me in my life that I had the appetite to do a particular role. And usually those roles were failures when I did them. So who can say? Thank you so much for talking with us. Oh it's been a pleasure. Thank you for all your great films, all your great performances, and for the book. Thank you very much. Thank you. Be well. You too.

Al Pacino's new memoir is called Sunny Boy. Let's close with a famous scene from his film Dog Day Afternoon. Pacino's character is robbing a bank to pay for his lover's gender affirmation surgery. But everything's gone wrong and he's holding everyone at the bank hostage.

In this scene he stepped outside where he's surrounded by police. Police snipers are on the surrounding rooftops and a police detective played by Charles Durning is trying to get him to release the hostages. A crowd of people has gathered outside the bank watching the whole spectacle. Come on put it by the head. All you got is attempted robbery. Armed robbery. All right armed Yeah. Nobody's been hurt. Release the hostages. Nobody's gonna worry over kidnapping charges.

The most you're gonna get is five years. You get out in one year, huh? Kiss me, man. What? Kiss me. When I'm being f-----, I like to get kissed a lot. Come on, come on, now, come on. You're a city cop, right?

Robbing the bank's a federal offense. They got me on kidnapping, armed robbery. They're gonna bury me, man. I don't wanna talk to somebody who's trying to calm me. Get somebody in charge here. I am in charge. Robbing the bank's a federal offense. They got me on kidnapping, armed robbery. They're gonna bury me, man. I don't wanna talk to somebody who's trying to calm me. Get somebody in charge here. I don't wanna talk to some flunky pig trying to calm me. You don't have to be calling me pig.

When you get back over there... What are you doing? Get over there! Get over there, man! He wants to kill me so bad he can taste it. I was gonna kill you. Attica! Attica!

Attica! Attica! Attica! Attica! Attica! Attica! Attica! Attica!

Attica! Attica! Attica! Attica! Attica! Attica! Attica! ["Fresh Air Theme"]

Tomorrow on Fresh Air, we'll remember Quincy Jones and listen back to my 2001 interview with him. He died Sunday. He was an arranger, composer and producer for music that spans from the big bands through bebop, pop, movie soundtracks, TV themes and hip hop. He arranged or produced recordings for Frank Sinatra, Ray Charles, and Naritha Franklin, and produced Michael Jackson's albums Off the Wall, Bad, and Thriller. I hope you'll join us. Fresh Air's executive producer is Danny Miller.

Our technical director is Audrey Bentham. Our engineer is Adam Stanaszewski. Our interviews and reviews are produced and edited by Phyllis Myers, Anne Marie Baudenado, Sam Brigger, Lauren Krenzel, Theresa Madden, Monique Nazareth, Thea Challener, Susan Yacundy, and Anna Bauman. Our digital media producers are Molly C.V. Nesper and Sabrina Seaworth. Roberta Sherrock directs the show. Our co-host is Tanya Mosley. I'm Terry Gross. Ever look up at the stars and wonder, what's out there?

On Shortwave, we ask big questions about our universe. From baby galaxies to the search for alien life, we explore the celestial science behind these questions. Listen now to the Shortwave podcast from NPR. From poll numbers to talking points to all the drama, we get it. Election season can be a lot. That's why here at NPR's Pop Culture Happy Hour podcast, we're in the business of providing a little release from the squeeze of the political season. Try out any of our shows on the latest in TV, movies, and music to keep you grounded and bring you back to Earth. New episodes every week on Pop Culture Happy Hour, only from NPR.

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