Pacino film charts coach’s downfall
BEVERLY HILLS, California — Al Pacino can turn a 10-minute photo shoot into a bravura performance.
The Oscar-winning actor, ever the artist, asks a stylist not to fuss too much with his hair — “I don’t mind. It’s the imperfections.” — and praises the versatility of the tuxedo while posing with Barry Levinson, who directs him in HBO’s Paterno (8 p.m. tonight). The movie charts the downfall of legendary Penn State football coach Joe Paterno in the wake of a former subordinate’s arrest on child sex charges.
But it’s the comfort Pacino feels with frequent collaborator Levinson (Rain Man, Diner) that’s most apparent, as the two discuss everything from contemporary politics to Roman aqueducts before a photographer asks them to move closer together.
“It’s not like you’re a stranger,” Pacino jokingly chides, as the director moves closer. “We’re pals,” Levinson says, putting his hand on Pacino’s shoulder.
Trust led the Oscar winners to return to HBO for their third biopic after 2010’s You Don’t Know Jack, about mercy-killing Dr. Jack Kevorkian, and 2013’s Phil Spector, which Levinson produced. Pacino won Emmys for Jack and for playing real-life lawyer Roy Cohn in HBO’s Angels in America.
“Al’s always willing to try something. What happens if we do this?” says Levinson, 75, of Pacino, 77. “There’s a certain experimentation. Some things may work; maybe something doesn’t work. It makes it fun.”
“I trust him completely,” Pacino says. “That’s important to an actor. The thing I’ve learned with Barry is to see if you can keep from censoring yourself.”
Paterno covers a two-week period in 2011 that saw the legendary coach, then 85, go from setting a college win record to being fired after Jerry Sandusky’s arrest on charges of sexually abusing boys during and after his tenure as Paterno’s defensive coordinator. Paterno came under fire for not stopping or taking more than minimally required action regarding Sandusky.
As the crisis intensifies, Paterno’s home becomes a bunker for the increasingly beleaguered coach, his wife (Kathy Baker) and his adult children (Greg Grunberg, Annie Parisse and Larry Mitchell). The film also tracks Sara Ganim (Riley Keough), the young Harrisburg Patriot-News reporter who won a Pulitzer Prize for her coverage of the scandal. (Ganim served as a consultant on the film.).
“It’s an incredible fall from grace. You’re talking about the king of Happy Valley,” Levinson says, referring to the coach’s supreme status in State College, Pennsylviania. “Here’s a man who talks about education, a humanitarian. He’s at the height, the winningest coach in college football history, and within a week he’s fired and then goes in for the diagnosis of cancer. And you go, ‘Wow!’ ”
What Paterno knew about Sandusky’s criminal behaviour has been a frequent topic of debate. The film goes into detail about Paterno being informed about a 2001 incident, which he reported to university authorities — but not police — without taking further action, and alludes to a child’s contention that he reported abuse by Sandusky to Paterno in 1976. Paterno’s family denied he knew of any incidents before the 2001 allegation.
In its decision to fire Paterno, Penn State’s board of trustees said he met legal requirements in notifying Penn State authorities about the 2001 incident but not a larger moral responsibility.
Levinson says he avoided taking a stance on Paterno’s complicity. “He obviously had information. Now, which way did he deal with that information? How much did he know or didn’t know? I think that’s what makes it fascinating.”
Paterno was complicated and contradictory, says Pacino, evident in a scene in which he seems oblivious to Sandusky’s behaviour, and another when he shrewdly but coldly advises a university representative to cut ties with two Penn State officials accused of lying about and failing to report Sandusky’s behaviour.
“He goes to denial and then guilt and then a kind of contrition. [That] can happen sometimes within a scene,” Pacino says. “He’s trying to figure out two things: what he did that has allowed this to happen and how do you cope with it? “
Levinson says TV is now the place for complex adult dramas.
Theatrical films “don’t really do stories about people,” he says. “You’re doing something that is, in a sense, considered not commercial enough theatrically, but more people will see it than will see something” in a theatre.
Pacino, who will appear with Robert De Niro in Martin Scorsese’s The Irishman, due in 2019, says he relishes playing real-life characters (he portrays real-life union boss Jimmy Hoffa in Irishman), especially on the premiumcable network. It sounds like there will be more after Paterno.
“HBO is like my studio. I can go to them with anything,” he says. “It’s comforting to know they’re there and they take these chances.”