Al Pacino Started Taking Paycheck Roles at 70 Because “I Was Broke"

I highly recommend Al Pacino’s recently published memoir “Sonny Boy,” which is one of the best, and most honest, Hollywood memoirs that I’ve read in recent years, maybe the best one. It’s amusing to read about Pacino’s love for teleprompters which started in 2015, during his off-broadway stint acting in David Mamet’s “China Doll.”

There’s an interesting passage in the book where Pacino admits that he was forced to take acting roles solely for the paycheck when he turned 70. All of his money was gone at that point, mostly due to a corrupt accountant who eventually served seven and a half years in prison for a Ponzi scheme.

“I was broke. I had $50 million, and then I had nothing. I had property, but I didn’t have any money,” Pacino writes. “In this business, when you make $10 million dollars for a film, it’s not $10 million. Because after the lawyers, and the agents, and the publicist, and the government, it’s not $10 million, it’s $4.5 million in your pocket. But you’re living above that because you’re high on the hog. And that’s how you lose it. It’s very strange, the way it happens. The more money you make, the less you have.”

Before losing all of his money, Pacino admits he would only sign up to films that he could “relate to” and that he “could bring something” to. However, once he went broke, he immediately agreed to star in Adam Sandler’s “Jack and Jill.”

‘Jack and Jill’ was the first film I made after I lost my money. To be honest, I did it because I didn’t have anything else. Adam Sandler wanted me, and they paid me a lot for it. So I went out and did it, and it helped. I love Adam, he was wonderful to work with and has become a dear friend. He also just happens to be a great actor and a hell of a guy.

It is interesting to compare Pacino’s roles before and after the age of 70. Prior to “going broke,” he had made a name for himself with landmark roles in such films as “The Godfather,” “The Godfather Part II,” “Dog Day Afternoon,” “Serpico,” “Glengary Glen Ross,” “Scent of A Woman,” “Heat,” “Carlito’s Way,” “Donnie Brasco,” and “The Insider.”

Things have been a lot shakier for Pacino these last 15 years, he’s had to resort to paycheck roles; who even remembers “Son of No One,” “Stand Up Guys,” “The Humbling,” “Misconduct,” “The Pirates of Somalia” “American Traitor” and “Hangman”?

Pacino’s best performance of the last 15 years has got to be his incredible turn as Jimmy Hoffa in Martin Scorsese’s “The Irishman.” He nearly stole the show from De Niro in that film. An honorable mention must also go out to his outrageously entertaining turn as Aldo Gucci in Ridley Scott’s “The House of Gucci.”