He's right, sober is an inappropriate word for him. At 64, he's still known as a man who operates better at night than in the day. He has had numerous famous girlfriends (Debra Winger, Diane Keaton) and numerous unfamous girlfriends, and he has never married. He has a daughter of 15, and 4-year-old twins with a different mother, Beverly D'Angelo, from whom he is separated. I ask him if he is seeing anybody at the moment. "I'm single and I don't particularly like it. I'm certainly the kind of person who prefers ... it ... it ..." He struggles for his words. "It's good to have someone in your life that you're going through this thing with. It's good. That's a thing in life that I aspire to." He asks me if I'm still with the mother of my children. Yes, I say. "Well, that's good, good for everybody. Particularly good for the children if you are in synch." He comes to a stop. "You understand after a while why people stay together because of children. I never knew that." He sounds so innocent, so regretful.

Well, perhaps we could put in a little personal ad at the bottom of the piece, I say, trying to cheer him up. He bursts out laughing and says only if I really despise him would I do that.

Pacino says he finds everything so much easier these days -- life, movies, being himself. In the early days, he almost lost his soul to his work. Yes, he says, he is still attracted to those complex baddie-goodies and goody-baddies, but he hasn't got a clue why. "When I try to explain anything I always end up trying to be right usually, but not truthful necessarily. Trying to give the right answer or what I think is the right answer. It's a human instinct. You try to be as clever as you can be. You're trying to come off like you really know what the hell's going on, when you don't!" You're pretty gentle at heart, aren't you, I say, a bit of a pussy? He equivocates. "There are times when I have a temperament. Yes, my temperament is there ... but I hope I'm gentle. Yes, I think I am."

I ask him if his hair is really that color. I had always assumed it was dyed. "Yeah, here take a look at it. I had to dye it for 'Insomnia.'" I ruffle my hands through it and find the odd silver streak, but the rest is pure brown. "I got this from my father." His chest hair is gray. What is the pendant on your chest? "A friend gave me this. It's copper. It helps your immune system. It seems to have helped me. Maybe it's psychological."

Winter's setting in; the afternoon's getting dark and eerie. I ask him what he dreamed about the previous night. (I don't tell him why, but a colleague dreamed that she had slept with him.) He looks surprised. "How did you know I had this strange dream? Well, that is for me to know, and you to find out. I'll give you the number of my therapist."

Have you really got one?

"I knew you'd say that. Yes, it's good to have someone to talk to; it's helped me a great deal in my life." I ask him if he manages to talk to his therapist in full sentences. He laughs. "No, I don't, but he likes it that way. The problem with me is, I guess, the way I express myself, you have to be with me 50 years before you can get a sense of what I'm talking about."

Has it taken him that long to understand himself? "Yeah," he says. "Yeah, it has."

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