The stories are legion of how he got lost in his roles -- how when he was playing a lawyer and a friend told him he was having conveyancing problems, he asked to see his contract; how he fell with his eyes open, just as a blind man would, when playing Lt. Col. Frank Slade in "Scent of a Woman"; how he did shifts in a cafe, tossing pancakes, to prepare himself for "Frankie and Johnny."

But what about when you were playing those psychos, I ask. Surely if you were Method-acting a monster, you became a monster? No, you've got it wrong, he says quietly; they are not monsters. "One doesn't see it as a monster. You don't look at it like that. It's passion and emotions, and it's in all of us." You have to look for the human in all the characters you play, he says.

Did you become a nightmare to be around? "Well, I was ... I was affected by it." He stammers. "You know we're, we're ... you have to ask somebody else." He pauses. Actually, he says, he thinks what saved him when making "Scarface" was his girlfriend. "I'll tell you something," he says. He puts down his coffee as if he's about to tell me his greatest secret. "And this is a fact. When I was doing 'Scarface,' I remember being in love at that time. One of the few times in my life. And I was so glad it was at that time. I would come home and she would tell me about her life that day and all her problems and I remember saying to her, Look, you really got me through this picture because I would shed everything when I came home."

Does he like guns? "I'm not crazy about the guns. I got to tell ya, that's not my thing." Has he ever owned one? "Never! I've never cared for guns. In fact, when I did "Scent of a Woman" I had to learn how to assemble one."

Is he as hard in real life as he is in movies? He looks at me as if I'm bonkers. "I couldn't possibly be. I couldn't possibly be."

You know, he says, he never planned any of this. Having told me what isn't him (guns and violence), he tells me what is him: theater, Shakespeare and comedy. "Did you know I started out as a stand-up comic?" He looks embarrassed. "People don't believe me when I tell them." He performed in revues in New York's Greenwich Village, doing physical comedy, and that's what he really loved. "That's how I saw myself, in comedy, and I didn't know I would do this with my life. I didn't know what the hell I was going to do." If you look back to say, "Dog Day Afternoon," he says, you can see the physical comedian in him. "That's where humor lives for me. In the body. The Steve Martin kind of stuff or Jim Carrey, that's what I like. I've always felt that's what I would like to do."

In some more recent roles, such as "Scent of a Woman" and "The Devil's Advocate," he has hammed it up to great effect. His critics suggest that he hass also hammed it up in his serious roles. He looks a little hurt when I mention it. "You can't call Shylock hammy," he protests. No, I say, but there are certain films ... "Yes, certain roles you go too far," he concedes. " Some-times-you-go-too-far ," he says, syllable by syllable. "But part of what you hope to do is not censor yourself, and then find a way to pull back, and sometimes you don't censor yourself and you get caught off-guard."

He says it's the director's job to rein him in, and they don't always bother. "Sometimes it seems that directors just say, 'Give me more Pacino, more Pacino,'" I say. "Yeaaaaaah," he roars. "That has happened, yes." At his best, directors such as Sidney Lumet seem to ask him for less rather than more. "Sidney is a great director, one of the greatest I have known. And one thing Sidney does do is rehearse you. You have three weeks' rehearsal, like you're doing a play. And in the rehearsal these things are sorted out. And the more rehearsal I have, the more likely I am to find the right levels. I think Michael Radford did that to me in "The Merchant." If I was concerned about anything it was that it was so low-key."

Back in the 1970s, when Method acting took him over, he took to drink. He found filmmaking and life exhausting. After "The Godfather," he had become so famous so quickly, and he couldn't cope. When did he realize he had a problem? "When it replaced work. Drinking became more attractive than working." He snorts back his snot, unselfconsciously, and continues. "I like what Norman Mailer said about alcohol: 'Drink has killed a lot of my brain cells and I think I would have been a better writer without it, but it would be one less way to relax.'"

"Sfffhhhhhchhhhh." He snorts again. Drink allowed him to be quiet, at ease with himself, I say. "That's right! That's right! We know the best feeling in the world is the one between the second and third martini. That was my deal. I just enjoyed who I became when I was drinking, so that was something hard to break. I became much quieter, and funny. I must say, that kind of thing came out." In the past, he has called himself a depressive with a sense of humor. And when he was sober? "Well, I was looking for a drink." Perhaps the problem with fame was that the roles were so iconic and his fans thought they knew who he was and that person was so alien to him. "Yeah! Yep! Yeah!" At times he talk-shouts with such animation, his hands gesturing all over the show.

"I really like it better in the world when I can see things clearly and I can remember things, and I feel like I'm a part of things and I'm more tuned in to what's going on, and not backing away from stuff." He hasn't drunk alcohol for 20-plus years. "I can't say I've been sober though. I don't like that word. What does it mean? 'Sober! He's very sober,'" he says to himself with contempt.

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