ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
In the Bronx in the 1940s, a kid growing up in a tenement started to figure out his destiny. He was 5 when he watched a movie about the struggles of an alcoholic, and then he'd mimic the performance over and over for his Sicilian immigrant relatives. By junior high, he was doing the school plays. One guy told him he'd be the next Marlon Brando. Soon enough, this boy the neighborhood kids called Pacchi was acting opposite Brando in one of the great movies of all time.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "THE GODFATHER")
MARLON BRANDO: (As Don Vito Corleone) Good man...
AL PACINO: (As Michael) I took care of that.
BRANDO: (As Don Vito Corleone) Oh, that's right. I forgot.
PACINO: (As Michael) What's the matter? What's bothering you? I'll handle it. I told you I can handle it. I'll handle it.
SHAPIRO: Those are just some of the stories Al Pacino shares in his new memoir, "Sonny Boy." He talked with us from our NPR studio in Culver City about where his career trajectory all started - in a tough neighborhood in the Bronx, running around with friends who ended up on different paths.
PACINO: I call them young, wild kids. They were kids who came from South Bronx with me and many others. And we lived day to day and in adventure. It's more like "Huckleberry Finn." When I was telling the story of my young life, I kept thinking of things. It could be in the Midwest. It could be North, South. It was a neighborhood that was not middle class. It was almost poverty.
SHAPIRO: Yeah.
PACINO: But it was fine. We lived a life of adventure. We explored and had fun, and we had these different characters.
SHAPIRO: There's this romanticism to it, but also, your three closest childhood friends all died of drugs.
PACINO: Oh, yeah. That was coming (ph).
SHAPIRO: How do you think you wound up on such a different path?
PACINO: Well, I think - I don't know. I remember Cliffy (ph), one of my best friends and very popular in the neighborhood, said, you know, Al, just - Sonny, they used to call me Sonny. Sonny gets high on his - on whatever, what's in his head, on his own supply. So...
SHAPIRO: But also, you say your mom helped keep you out of it.
PACINO: My mom was the main reason I'm here talking to you.
SHAPIRO: Wow.
PACINO: So that I know for sure - and my grandfather. And I didn't have a dad. I had a dad that - they were split up, and I hardly ever saw him till I got older and more well-known.
SHAPIRO: When you were a teenager, you saw a performance of Chekhov's "The Seagull" that changed your life.
PACINO: Yeah, that's right.
SHAPIRO: And the detail that stands out to me about it was that you were sitting in a theater with about 2,000 seats, and there were maybe 15 people in the audience.
PACINO: (Laughter) Yeah.
SHAPIRO: And one of them was you. And I imagine those actors must have felt like they had failed that day, like they were playing to an empty house. And it changed your life.
PACINO: Here's the interesting story about that because I saw this play, and I was taken with it. Somehow, it just - it really got to me. I just went out and bought Chekhov's short stories that I couldn't believe that I could be holding his book and reading. I was sort of enamored with him. And I remember going to the Howard Johnson's that was on the corner for a lunch break from school. And I walked in, and as a waiter at the counter was the lead of the play, "The Seagull," that I had just seen. And I just said to him, like, hey. I just saw you. You know, you were - I saw you up there in Bronx. He said, oh, yeah. And then we started talking. I was 15, 14. He was about, I guess, in his 20s. And when I told him how much I admired him and what he was doing, I said, and there it is, right? There - actors have other jobs.
SHAPIRO: Yeah. There's something you used to tell aspiring actors when they would ask, why did you make it and I didn't? You would give them the same answer - you wanted to; I had to.
PACINO: I had to.
SHAPIRO: Tell us about that had to.
PACINO: I knew as a youngster 'cause you know, my life as a youngster - you've read it. You know a little about the issues that I came in contact with. But at the same time, I knew I would follow this because I was in a play, a Strindberg play, actually. And at some point, I started speaking in a way that was coming from me inside and using the author's words. And I found that this was a wonderful way to live. You know, I thought, I mean, this is it. I have this. It doesn't matter what happens - if I become famous, if I eat, I don't eat, if I make money, I don't make money. I was that strongly connected.
SHAPIRO: So I had to was not I had to feed myself, I had to pay the rent, I had to make a living, and I didn't have a college degree.
PACINO: No, no. No.
SHAPIRO: I had to is something deeper.
PACINO: Deeper, I would say. Yeah.
SHAPIRO: You say that writing this book helped you find out more about yourself, and that you see a person who is anarchic. What does anarchic mean in that context? What do you see?
PACINO: Well, you know, I can say I think I'm also a bit of a nonconformist. Is that a word that's used anymore?
SHAPIRO: Sure. Yeah, I would agree with that.
PACINO: Yeah. And I don't know. I - but also, I've learned over the years that you do change, and things change and - 'cause I'm old now. In relation to where I was, it's almost night and day.
SHAPIRO: Does age bring less anarchy?
PACINO: No, it doesn't.
SHAPIRO: It doesn't (laughter).
PACINO: No. You go through a period when there's less anarchy, then you get back to it as you get old.
SHAPIRO: So now at the age of 84, do you still feel the hunger, the curiosity, the drive to keep working and learning and exploring you've always had?
PACINO: Yeah. God, yes. Oh, yeah, of course I do.
SHAPIRO: There's one more line in the book that I want to ask you about.
PACINO: Yeah.
SHAPIRO: You say, I'll never learn, and that's my problem or my gift.
PACINO: Well, yeah, in a way - that's a complicated thing to answer, and I will answer it. But it may bore you to tears.
SHAPIRO: (Laughter) Give it a try.
PACINO: I have to at least try to tell you. My acting teacher at school, we put on plays, right? In junior high school, I was in the plays, and she came to my apartment, walked up six flights, to talk to my grandmother. And she told my grandmother - 'cause we were very poor, and she told my grandmother that he has to continue with acting in his life, this boy. The craft of acting, I always felt came from doing. Doing a scene in front of people from a play is where you learn. I thought I'll learn by doing. This is the art for me. This is where I express how I feel about things.
(SOUNDBITE OF NINO ROTA'S "SPEAK SOFTLY, LOVE")
SHAPIRO: That's Al Pacino, speaking about his life and his new memoir, "Sonny Boy." And tomorrow on ALL THINGS CONSIDERED, we'll hear more from Pacino taking a deeper dive into some of his most famous on-screen roles.
(SOUNDBITE OF NINO ROTA'S "SPEAK SOFTLY, LOVE") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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