Al Pacino takes music stage by storm in ‘ Danny Collins’
Veteran actor takes the music stage by storm
“PEOPLE LOSE THEIR MINDS AROUND AL. ... HE CANNOT GO OUT. HE JUST GETS MOBBED.”
Co- star Bobby Cannavale
Even 40 years later, Al Pacino recalls an early rock- star moment with crystal clarity.
The consummate actor was performing a Bertolt Brecht play in Boston when he glanced out into the crowd from stage.
“In the first two rows were these girls sitting there with a picture of me on their chests,” he says. “And I’m just looking at that. Youhave to adjust to that stuff.”
It’s hard to blame the legions of adoring fans Pacino amassed after exploding into popular culture with an unforgettable string of classic movies,
including The Godfather ( 1972), Serpico
( 1973), The Godfather: Part II ( 1974) and Dog Day Afternoon ( 1975). He has received reverential treatment ever since. In the dramatic comedy Danny Collins ( expanding nationwide Friday), Pacino, 74, plays an aging but beloved musician who takes his gift more seriously after receiving a never- delivered letter from John Lennon.
The rocker persona fits, says co- star Bobby Cannavale, who witnessed prolonged Pacino- madness while the two starred in Broadway’s Glengarry Glen
Ross. “People lose their minds around Al,” Cannavale says. “We would try to get him to go out with us, but he cannot go out. He just gets mobbed.”
Pacino looks the rocker part during a Beverly Hilton breakfastmeeting, taking off his mirrored sunglasses to stride through the restaurant in head- to- toe black, topped by a slick tuxedo jacket. Every diner’s head turns.
The two- time Tony Award winner says his love for musical performing started when he played King Mongkut of Siam in his school’s staging of The King
and I. As an up- and- coming actor, Pacino was offered a role in the Broadway production of Zorba. But Pacino passed on the part because it was too big of a time commitment and went on to make
The Godfather.
Some of the rocker aspects are in his blood, like the swiveling stage moves he incorporates in Danny Collins.
“I’m a natural dancer,” Pacino says. “I inherited that from my mother and my father, who used to win dance contests. I can get into it. I have the rhythm.”
He returns to Broadway this fall with the new David Mamet play China Doll. But music is “more visceral.” He knows this firsthand after his true rock moment, stepping out as Danny Collins to perform solo at a sold- out Greek Theatre concert in Los Angeles while film cameras rolled.
Pacino sailed onstage. The crowd went nuts.
“If I wasn’t in character— if it was me, Al — I probably would have passed out,” he says. “It’s that’s invigorating.”