Godfather Al Pacino Quotes

I don't know what I expected – no maybe I do, Al Pacino from Scarface- but this drug dealer is more like Al Pacino at the beginning of The Godfather reasonably bemused, untouched by his criminal world, sitting with Diane Keaton whispering about Luca Brazzi, not yet asleep with the fishes, or like Al Pacino from Glengarry Glen Ross, although actually, now that I think about it, he's not like Al Pacino at all but more like Kevin Spacey from that film, and who's ever been afraid of Kevin Spacey?

For my number-one favorite kill, I almost went with Johnny Depp being eaten alive and then regurgitated by his own bed in A Nightmare on Elm Street, but the winner, by a finger blade’s width, has to be the death of that feisty Tina (Amanda Wyss), who put up such a fight while I thrashed her about on the ceiling of her bedroom. Freddy loves a worthy adversary, especially if it’s a nubile teenaged girl. A close second goes to my hearing-impaired victim Carlos (Ricky Dean Logan) in Nightmare 6. In these uber-politically-correct times, it’s refreshing to remember what an equal opportunity killer Freddy always was. Not only does he pump up the volume on the hearing aid from hell, but he also adds a nice Latino kid to his body count. Today they probably wouldn’t even let Freddy force-feed a fat kid junk food. Dream death number three is found in a sequence from Nightmare 3. Freddy plays puppet master with victim Phillip (Bradley Gregg), converting his arm and leg tendons into marionette strings, then cutting them in a Freddy meets Verigo moment. The kiss of death Profressor Freddy gives Sheila (Toy Newkirk) is great, but not as good as Al Pacino’s in The Godfather, so my fourth pick is Freddy turning Debbie (Brooke Theiss) into her worst nightmare, a cockroach, and crushing her in a Roach Motel. A classic Kafka/Krueger kill. For my final fave, you will have to check out Freddy vs. Jason playing at a Hell’s Octoplex near you. Here’s a hint: the hockey-puck guy and I double team a member of Destiny’s Child. Yummy! Now where’s that Beyonce…

...She recalls talking to her 'about how there were no women in The Godfather.' Or rather, that the women only served to reaffirm that it was a man's space, that they were only there to serve drinks and be shut out. In classic Hollywood cinema, a woman walks on-screen; She is there to be looked at. She interrupts the action. Diane Keaton in The Godfather is a foil for Al Pacino: She whines, she interrupts, and at the end, she's put in her place. She makes drinks and gets the door shut in her face.

I saw how much it meant to Francis that I play the part of Michael, even more than it meant to me. He saw me in the role, gave me a great opportunity, and he fought for me. And yet we were worlds apart. I actually reached out to him recently and asked him about that time in our life together during The Godfather: Part II. He couldn’t recall it and couldn’t quite say. But I remember it as a period when we were somewhat distant from each other and I’m very grateful it didn’t last long. Francis and I saw a lot of things the same way, and I admire him greatly. He has a brilliant mind and talent of epic proportions, and I enjoy hearing his take on any subject. He had made this one incredible film and now we were trying to finish a second.

A strange and discordant mix of roles followed. I liked one film I did, The Humbling, because I did it with Barry Levinson. It was based on the novel by Philip Roth, who I met at a party in New York. I found Roth there, sitting in a chair, and he was very serious when he looked at me. I said, “Hi, Mr. Roth. I’m Al Pacino.” He had a look on his face that was haunting. In a cold, impassive voice, he said, “I. Know. Who you are.” I just thought to myself, Well, I’m famous. He’s seen me in films. Maybe he saw The Godfather, I don’t know. But I loved his writing and was a real fan, so I kept spouting to him. I said, “I’m doing a film of your book The Humbling. And it’s very funny.” In that same funereal voice as before, he said, “It’s. Not. Funny.” I said, “No, I know, it’s not really funny. But to get through the drama, sometimes you need a little funny.” Again, he said, “It’s. Not. Funny.” I said, “Sure. Okay. You’re right. It’s not funny.” And I backed out of the room into the street.

Getting more into one-on-one therapy helped. It helped me to keep going, and it helped me to quit drinking. I almost feel it’s mandatory in my position. C’mon, buddy, you’ve got to get your head shrunk. Because your head gets so big, you need to shrink it. You need to go to some guy who’s going to tell you what you already know about yourself and pay attention to you for an hour straight. Which we all like. We all need a little attention. The first time I ever considered therapy was back in Boston, during my run in Richard III. I was staying at our director David Wheeler’s house for a few days, and he came into my room one morning to share some good news with me. “Hey, Al!” he said. “You just won the National Board of Review!” It was my first major film award for The Godfather. I said to him, in the softest voice I could summon up, “I was going to ask you, David, do you have the name of a psychiatrist? Because I need one.” That was my answer to him. Not that I was unhappy about winning such a prestigious award, but there were just other things on my mind. I saw a psychiatrist in Boston first, and then I went and got myself a guy in New York. I fell in love with the process, and I got to a point where I was in therapy five days a week at certain times. I highly recommend therapy if you’re at all leaning in that direction. Maybe you don’t need it five times a week, but give it a whirl. There’s an old story: A woman goes to a therapist for years. It’s her last appointment, because she feels she’s come to a great place in her life and is ready to move on. She wants to congratulate her therapist and say goodbye. So she tells him, “You’ve done so much good for me. I love my husband so much. Every day with my kids is just a joy. My work is going off the charts. I’m seeing a whole new side of life. You’ve been so wonderful. I never hear you speak. You just take it all in. Please tell me, how did you do it?” The doctor looks at her and says, “No habla inglés.” That’s an interpretation of therapy too; you need to talk and get it out. When I was living with Jill, before I ever went to therapy, I used to just sit in the bathtub alone and talk about things. I cleared my mind to myself. It’s an unusual relationship that you forge when you find a good doctor, someone you feel has that kind of commitment to you. And then they take some colossal amount of time off, and you don’t see them for the whole summer. I had one of those episodes when I couldn’t find my doctor. I might have been spared about twenty years of tsuris if I could have avoided it. It’s a good idea that when your psychiatrist goes away, you know where they are and you can call them when you’re in trouble. They need rest too. I can deal with, “Hey, my daughter’s graduating college, I’ll be out for a few days.” But going up a fucking river somewhere, to not be available for, like, six weeks? Come on, my life was capable of going right off the rails in far less time than that. I used to have recurring dreams in which I go to my psychiatrist’s office but can’t find him anywhere. He’s in the building, but he’s unavailable. I’m at the door, but there’s not even a buzzer I can press to let him know I’m there and no way to let me in. That was my dream. Now I have that feeling about my agent.

By the time Google was telling Semel $1 billion, $3 billion, and then $6 billion, they had a plan. Now it was time to put that plan into action. It was time to go to the mattresses. At first, they called it Project Godfather. They called it that because, in the movie The Godfather, there’s a montage where, as Al Pacino’s Michael Corleone has his godson baptized in church, his hit men take out all of his family’s enemies at once. That was the plan Decker, Weiner, and Coppel had come up with for Yahoo. They were going to have Yahoo’s M&A team take out the entire search industry—except Google, of course—all at once.

Keep your friends close, but your enemies closer. —AL PACINO (AS MICHAEL CORLEONE), THE GODFATHER, PART II

Marlon showed me generosity, too, but I don't think he saved it all for me, because he shared it with the audience. It's what made his performance so memorable and so endearing. We all fantasize about having someone like Don Vito we can turn to. So many people are abused in this life, but if you've got a Godfather, you've got someone you can go to, and they will take care of it. That's why people responded to him in the film. It was more than just the bravado and the boldness; it was the humanity underneath it. That's why he had to play Vito larger than life- his physical size, the shoe polish in his hair, the cotton in his cheeks. His Godfather had to be an icon, and Brando made him as iconic as Citizen Kane or Superman, Julius Caesar or George Washington. p124