NEW YORK (AP) – Al Pacino says he can relate to Simon Axler, the lead character in his film The Humbling – about an aging actor who worries he’s lost his craft and his appetite for acting.
That’s partly why he made the film.
“I thought I had a better chance of making a movie that was effective because it was about a world I understood,” the Oscar-winning actor said in a recent interview to promote the film.
Adapted from Philip Roth’s 2009 novel, The Humbling was directed by Academy Award-winning filmmaker Barry Levinson (Rain Man) and co-stars Golden Globe nominee Greta Gerwig (Frances Ha).
At 74, Pacino says that at times he feels his age.
“I do feel differently. I don’t quite get up from this table the same way. I may want to but I don’t.”
Yet the actor says the similarities end there. Simon may be ready to give up acting but Pacino is not.
“Acting, especially if you’ve done it as long as I have,” he said, “it becomes such a part of your nature you rarely ever think about quitting or anything like that.”
The star of such iconic films as The Godfather trilogy and Scent of a Woman, which won him his 1992 best actor Oscar, says he’s convinced there’s another big role ahead of him, but adding, “I don’t know if it’s going to be in movies. … Acting, it can take on different forms”.
Pacino was scheduled to perform with the Philadelphia Orchestra this weekend, doing Shakespeare and personal readings. He will return to Broadway this fall to appear in David Mamet’s latest work China Doll.
Television remains in Pacino’s acting future, as well.
The two-time Emmy winner (You Don’t Know Jack, Angels in America) says he’s looking into an episodic series that could stream on a service like Netflix or Amazon about Napoleon’s final days on the Island of Saint Helena.
