ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1995, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, December 22, 1995 TAG: 9512220005
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: NEW YORK
SOURCE: RICK LEYVA ASSOCIATED PRESS
Al Pacino is absorbing, always absorbing.
``Acting comes out of chaos,'' he says, talking with his hands. ``You have to always be open for new stuff to happen, always keeping the antennae out, so it's not so much this [he holds his hands up like blinders] as it's that [swinging his arms wide] so you can then select and make the right choice.''
Becoming a thirsty sponge is only half the battle, though. Then you have to know when to squeeze it, Pacino says, using his lone Academy Award-winning performance as an example.
He recalled how in ``Scent of a Woman'' a lieutenant colonel taught him how to assemble and disassemble a .45-caliber gun blind.
``I would do it in the dark,'' he says, absentmindedly running his fingers through spiky black hair. ``You had to be able to take the gun apart and put it back together again in 45 seconds, and once I got it right he went, `Hoo-ah!'
``So that's where that thing came from,'' he says of his signature exclamation in the film. ``You're always open, to whatever. The antennae are out.''
Dressed completely in black, Pacino, 55, looks every bit the downtown artist, except for the glittering pile of gold chains dangling from his neck in tribute to his Bronx roots. He slurps weak room-service cappuccino and fidgets all over the couch discussing his life, his work and ``Heat,'' an explosive crime drama co-starring Robert De Niro.
``It's big,'' he says, talking with his hands again, shooting them out wide. ``I was very impressed. I didn't expect the kind of elegance it got.''
In ``Heat,'' Pacino's elite police team tracks De Niro's elite armed robbery crew. There's no shortage of electricity, no shortage of fireworks. His highly anticipated work with De Niro, although limited to three scenes, was worth the wait for Pacino.
``I've known him a long time. Over the years I've grown very fond of him, of his work and as a person, too,'' Pacino says, speaking carefully, like only the perfect combination of words will do. ``Your relationship with other actors has a real effect on the way you perform because you have to have a trust there, or you build one. That's part of what the deal is.
``With Bobby, I felt as though I was playing with a relative because I've known him so long. We've had intimate talks. Not that we tend to socialize - hardly at all. But there's a thing there, a mutual like. So that helped things. We didn't rehearse. I'd never worked with him before, but it felt like I'd been working with him for a long, long time. It must be trust.''
The two actors co-starred in ``The Godfather Part II,'' but had no scenes together: De Niro appeared only as a young Vito Corleone (Marlon Brando) in flashback footage, while Pacino played Corleone's grown son.
Pacino also can be seen in theaters over the holidays playing a wizened grandfather in ``Two Bits'' opposite Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, and he's the mayor of New York in ``City Hall,'' due out in February. His next film shoot is ``Donnie Brasco'' with Johnny Depp.
``Busy, busy, busy,'' Pacino says with a big grin, happily rubbing his hands together. Obviously, he's having a great day. He bubbles over when asked about his early Bohemian days in Greenwich Village.
``We had the theater,'' he says, emphasizing the word like he's saying eternal life. ``There was this energy. It was a very fruitful time, a very rich time, and I've never quite felt that again. Even with all the success that came.''
Pacino's greatness wasn't self-taught. Before winning acceptance to the Actor's Studio to work with the legendary Lee Strasberg, he studied with Charles Laughton at the Herbert Berghof Studio.
He calls the British acting giant ``Charlie, my dear friend and mentor.''
``I think mainly what Charlie did was he introduced me to different worlds, primarily the world of books I didn't have access to growing up in the South Bronx,'' he says. ``A kind of education was happening, a formal one, where before it was informal. He exposed me to all kinds of different ways of seeing things - great writing, music, all the great stuff. And I spent years with him, absorbing that kind of stuff.''
Absorbing, always absorbing.
Laughton died in 1962. Four years later, Pacino's entrance to the all-scholarship Actor's Studio brought more than peer acceptance, it brought another deep friendship.
``Lee and I became very close - later, because we worked together,'' Pacino says of the famed drama teacher who died in 1982 and who appeared in ``The Godfather Part II.''
``You know, he was this icon, and it was wonderful to go the Actor's Studio, but I was kind of afraid for him to even see me at first. I used to stand in the back.
``And then I got to know him as a fellow actor, and that changed everything because we were in the trenches together. We became tremendously close.''
Pacino, who has won two Tony awards, received seven Oscar nominations (``The Godfather,'' ``Serpico,'' ``The Godfather Part II,'' ``Dog Day Afternoon,'' ``...and Justice for All,'' ``Dick Tracy'' and ``Glengarry Glen Ross'') before finally breaking through with ``Scent of a Woman'' in 1992.
He rolls his eyes when asked to gauge what percentage of his success he owes to his distinguished dramatic father figures.
``I got a lot of help. You bet,'' he says, holding his hands out like he's showing how big a fish he caught. ``Oh man, that's what did it for me. That's what did it.''
His coffee has gone cold, but Pacino is just warming up, trying to explain what fuels him.
``As the Wallendas used to say, the troupe that used to walk on the high wire: `Life is on the wire. Life is on the wire. The rest is just waiting,''' he says, putting his hands out like he's balancing, then holding up a single fist. ``It's the action that makes the life. The action.''
LENGTH: Long : 107 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: ``Your relationship with other actors has a real effectby CNBon the way you perform,'' says Al Pacino, ``because you have to have
a trust there, or you build one.''