Al Pacino Quotes

Some of the roles that are challenging are more in theater and TV. In movies, there’s a tendency to cast actors in roles that have been successful for them. It has to pay for itself.

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.

I remember acting in a school play about the melting pot when I was very little. There was a great big pot onstage. On the other side of the pot was a little girl who had dark hair, and she and I were representing the Italians. And I thought: Is that what an Italian looked like?

You do get very tired sometimes, when you’re sitting around for hours in movies. You get depleted.

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.

It’s never really that much fun for me to do movies anyway, because you – you know, you have to get up very early in the morning and you have to go in and you spend a lot of time waiting around.

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.

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

All due respect and trying to be as modest as I can be, I am a dancer. But I don’t think I would be on ‘Dancing with the Stars,’ mainly because I would be too shy.

You’ll never be alone if you’ve got a book.

There is no happiness. There is only concentration.

When I was a younger actor, I would try to keep it serious all day. But I have found, later on, that the lighter I am about things when I’m going to do a big scene that’s dramatic and takes a lot out of you, the better off I am when I come to it.

I was not prepared for fame. It hit me hard, and I did not have the capacity to cope.

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.

All I am is what I’m going after.

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?

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.