Al Pacino says he never fully defeated alcoholism, just drank less over time. Friends like Sidney Lumet pushed him to take breaks from drinking, which led him to make Dog Day Afternoon. He learned he couldn't act well while drunk.
Questions this video answers
Dog Day (Dog Day Afternoon)
Chapters
How did you defeat alcoholism? Well, I, I didn't defeat it. One doesn't look at it that way. How long are you sober? All I could say is I'm never sober. I don't want to be sober. But I, I, I have to say, I don't just don't drink. But part of being involved in alcohol and the way of that life and all, which is today, it's extremely interesting to see the way it's dealt with today. In my day, it was all, as they used to say to Laurence Olivier. So, Laurence Olivier, what's your favorite part of acting? He'd say, the drink after the show. That was his favorite part. So it was all part of a world. And then when it started to replace, when the cart was in front of the horse and it sort of replaced the work and all other parts, I was reluctant to stop. But my great friend Charlie Lawton, who I've talked about so many times, not the actor, but the same name, the same name. He was a real influence over me because he was my mentor, my closest friend, really begged me to stop for a while, just to take a look at it and ask me if I would, because he had stopped for about a year and I was continuing, and he was quite worried about me. It was during one of those episodes of Drinking in London that I turned down Dog Day. I actually turned it down. I said, I said, I don't want to go into a bank, rob a bank and do all that stuff. I was talking like this. And I actually turned it down after I had said yes. And I was very lucky. I had someone like Marty Bregman and Sidney Lumet around, made me do it. Well, they didn't just make me do it. They understood I wasn't going to do it. I quit and they got somebody else. And during the course of this time, Bregman was on me, on me, on me. I said, marty, I don't want to do this. I don't want to do this. He said, if you stop drinking for a while, could you just stop for a while? I said, okay, for a while and read the script. I said, okay. He said, no, I mean it. Just don't drink. So I didn't drink for a couple of days. And I read the script. It was clear. I said, why am I not doing this? I should be doing this. And I called him. I said, you know, Marty, you're right. This is a great script. He said, okay, talk to you later. Boom. And he got on it. How did you, how did you stop drinking? I didn't just stop dead on. It's a gradation. You know, you. You. You gradate from one stage to another, and then it takes a while to even, you know, like as they often say, unscramble your brains. You know, you. You have a certain period of time and then slowly I. I got to understand what it was. And I have attempted, you know. You know, we need our anodynes. You know that word, anodynes? We need them in life. Sometimes a good warm bath can be one for you or whatever. And the, you know, a nice glass of wine is an anodyne. You know, at the end of the day, you have something and sit back, drink it. Enjoy. You tempted as we speak? I am. What's in here? No, I'm not. I'm not. It's been a long time, so I don't see the need for it. I don't think about it. Could you ever act while drunk? No. I didn't like that. And I've done it. You did. And I did it with a John Cassell on stage. But the great actors of the past and all, they would be, they would. They were drinking the wings on stage. I mean, they'd done the parts, you know, when it was part of the trade. But in our way, our approach to it, drinking wasn't a part of that thing.
