Al Pacino is reflecting on his decades-long career. This past week marked the 50th anniversary of the release of his seminal movie Dog Day Afternoon, which is based on the true story of John Wojtowicz and Salvatore Naturile, who on August 22, 1972 attempted to rob a Chase Manhattan Bank in Brooklyn, with the goal of raising money for John's transgender partner's transition surgery. The Scarface actor starred as Sonny Wojtowicz while John Cazale starred as Sal Naturile; the latter passed away just three years after the movie was released, aged 42, after a battle with lung cancer.
Al, speaking with The Guardian — just one day after fellow Hollywood legend Robert Redford passed away aged 89 — opened up about the bittersweet nature of watching his old work, knowing many of his co-stars have since passed. "It hits you, seeing all those people in Dog Day," he said, adding: "Can you imagine how you feel? Wow. It's like a dream. You're dreaming. You have a dream of someone and you're so happy about the dream and then you wake up and they’re not there any more? They don't even exist — in three dimensions anyway."
© Getty ImagesAl was 35 years old when Dog Day Afternoon was released, and had just played Michael Corleone in the sequel to The Godfather. He was already a respectable actor, but between his busy schedule and bubbling insecurities about taking on the role, he almost didn't take it. He was approached about it by Martin Bregman, who had been Al's personal manager and produced 1973's Serpico, which he starred in and was directed by Dog Day director Sydney Lumet. "He told me he wanted me to do it, and I had read it and thought it was well-written but I didn't want to do it."
"I was in London at the time and I thought, 'I'm running out of gas.' I don't know if I could do this again," he revealed, explaining: "It seemed having that kind of intensity again and going through that was too close, I thought, to The Godfather II, which was an intense experience in a lot of ways — not the actual work but everything that had been happening in my personal life was affecting me."
Al, who did initially turn down the role, at the time had been in an on-and-off relationship with his Godfather trilogy co-star Diane Keaton, and was battling drug and alcohol abuse issues. He ultimately achieved sobriety in 1977. "I thought, all right, I understand it's a great offer and thank you but I don't think I can do this. I'd like to pass," he further shared about his hesitation with Dog Day, noting how "once again" he would be having "some kind of gun and I'm gonna go in a bank and rob it: I don't want to go through that," referring to his back-to-back high stakes movie settings.
© GettyStill, he went on: "Bregman came back to me because they had someone else who said they wanted to do it, who was notorious, who was a famous actor," reportedly Dustin Hoffman but Al said he had no knowledge of who. "He calls me. I read the text and realize this is more than what I even thought it was. This is an interesting, powerful piece of work. I knew Sidney was involved, who I loved; we did Serpico together."
© Getty"The first thought I had was, why did I pass this up? Where was I in my head? He [Bregman] was a very wise man. I said, 'Why aren't I doing this, Mr B?’ He said, 'I don't know. Why aren't you doing it?' I said, 'Yeah, OK, I'll do it.' He said, 'All right.' I guess he had some work to do or whatever he did but they gave me the part and that was it."
© Ron Galella, Ltd.The cast was given three weeks to rehearse before shooting. Recalling the lead up to filming, Al shared: "For some reason, I felt as though I didn't know who the character I was playing was. I kind of left that out of the rehearsals or something. I don't know what happened but I knew when I saw something on the screen I said: no. I saw I didn't have a character so I thought, what am I doing, where am I, who am I, where am I going? … I went home that night, took half a gallon of white wine, which I don't usually drink, for some reason and spent the whole night finding a character within myself from the script. I come in the next day and of course Lumet is looking at me like, what happened, Al?"
"I was becoming somebody else, I think. I was becoming the guy that's in the film. I don't know to this day if I was kidding myself or what. But I did go through that and it helped me. Let's put it that way: whether I was right or wrong to do it, it did help me with it. I had something to work with personally."
