But then I met Frank Serpico in Bregman’s office. Bregman had set it up. I took one look at Frank and I knew. I said, I can play him. I’ve got to play him. I saw it in his eyes, and I thought, I want to be that. I’m often offered real people, and I turn them down. I didn’t want to be them. Not because they’re bad or good. Just because I didn’t feel any connection to them. I spent more time with Frank that summer before we made the film. He came to visit me at a house I was renting in Montauk. We were sitting on my deck, looking at the waves coming in. Finally I said something to him that he’d probably heard a thousand times before. “Frank, why didn’t you take those payoffs?” I asked him. “Just take that money and give your share away if you didn’t want to keep it?” He said to me, “Al, if I did that”—long pause—“who would I be when I listen to Beethoven?” There was something about that statement that just made me want to play him.”
― Al Pacino, Sonny Boy: A Memoir (Penguin, October 15, 2024)
Notes:
- Original Trailer for the movie Serpico here.
- Book Reviews:
- WSJ: ‘Sonny Boy’ Review: A Star Early & Late.
- Guardian: “Sonny Boy – A South Bronx Miracle“
- NY Times: “A More Freewheeling Book Lives Inside Al Pacino’s Memoir.”
- Al Pacino’s Memoir “Sonny Boy” was released on October 15, 2024.
- Don’t miss one my favorite collection of clips from “Scent of a Woman” here: “Hoo-ah!”