With ‘Righteous Kill’ now in cinemas and ’88 Minutes’ hitting Irish theatres this Friday, Movies.ie presents ten things you never knew about Al Pacino.
It’s been a busy few months for Al Pacino; first he reunited with fellow Academy Award winners Robert De Niro (Raging Bull) for the the adrenaline fuelled thriller ‘Righteous Kill’ and now, helmed by the same director Jon Avnet, he’s going it alone in the psychological thriller ’88 minutes’:
In ’88 Minutes’ our man Al plays Dr. Jack Gramm, a Seattle-based college professor and forensic psychiatrist, informed by an enigmatic caller that he has exactly that amount of time to live. The threat is linked to Gramm’s role in putting a convicted serial killer (Neal McDonough) behind bars nearly a decade earlier, and sends the scholar/consultant on a desperate run to avert his imminent demise. Entering into Gramm’s dangerous orbit are his dutiful assistant (Amy Brenneman), an FBI agent (William Forsythe), and his admiring young students (most notably Alicia Witt), all of whom add layers to this tense mystery.
In honour of the film’s release (in Irish cinemas from Friday) Movies.ie present ten things you never knew about Al Pacino:
(1) In January 1961, Pacino was arrested and charged with carrying a concealed weapon.
(2) The actor dropped out of school at the age of 17.
(3) Before becoming an actor, Al briefly worked as a stand-up comic early in his career.
(4) Early in his acting career, he considered changing his name to “Sonny Scott” to avoid being typecast by his Italian name. “Sonny” was his childhood nickname.
(5) Over the years Painco has turned down many big blockbusters including roles in such as: ‘Kramer vs. Kramer’, ‘Born on the Fourth of July’, ‘Apocalypse Now, ‘Star Wars’,’ Pretty Woman’
(6) Originally he had asked for $7 million for ‘The Godfather: Part III,’ a figure that so enraged director Francis Ford Coppola that he threatened to write a new script that opened with Michael Corleone’s funeral. Pacino settled for $5 million.
(7) He is one of the few Hollywood stars who has never married.
(8) The executives at Paramount didn’t want Al for the part of Michael Corleone in The Godfather. They often teased him by calling him “The Midget Pacino” (Pacino is 5’7″)
(9) In the final shootout sequence in ‘Scarface,’ Al Pacino grabs the gun by the barrel. Although only blanks were used, his hand was badly burned, and production had to be shut down for a few weeks
(10)For a short while, he was the only actor to be in the #1 Best and Worst Movie on IMDb: ‘The Godfather’ and ‘Gigli’.
Check out the trailer for ’88 Minutes’ below:
88 Minutes hits Irish cinemas this Friday, October 3rd.