Diving into Al Pacino’s deep passion for William Shakespeare
At one point or another, all the greatest actors consider playing a character written by the legendary English Bard William Shakespeare. The likes of Anthony Hopkins and Ben Kingsley, masters of the stage, came through the ranks performing in the likes of Othello and Hamlet, but on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean it looks as though few actors love Shakespeare as much as Al Pacino.
Jacobean and Elizabethan theatre is not the first kind of drama we associate with Pacino; known for his stunning character portrayals in the likes of The Godfather, Dog Day Afternoon, Carlito’s Way, Serpico, Heat and Scarface, we rather admire him for his gritty efforts in the crime drama genre.
But the truth is that the New York-born icon has a deep passion for Shakespeare that transcends his position as a 20th and 21st-century cinema legend. For instance, even early into his career, Pacino had taken his shot at bringing the Bard’s works to a contemporary audience in a production of Richard III put on by acclaimed director David Wheeler.
Speaking with theatre critic Elliot Norton, Pacino said at the time of his first involvement with Shakespeare, “I’ve always wanted to do Shakespeare, and it was optional when I did Richard or Hamlet or Iago or Othello and talking to David we discussed, and I thought, ‘Well, let’s go ahead and do Richard.”
However, the effort as Richard of Gloucester barely seemed to scratch Pacino’s Shakespearean itch, and it was evident that he would also have an innate fondness for the timeless English playwright. In 1996, Pacino delivered his directorial debut with the documentary film Looking for Richard, in which he once again played the character but cut his performance with explorations of the cultural influence of Shakespeare, speaking with the likes of Vanessa Redgrave, Kenneth Branagh and John Gielgud about the Bard in the process.
The 21st century also saw Pacino dive into the works of his favourite playwright, as he appeared in Michael Radford’s film version of Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice, playing the role of the Jewish moneylender Shylock, while Jeremy Irons played the titular role of Antonio and Joseph Fiennes and Lynn Collins played Bassanio and Portia, respectively.
Radford’s film version omitted much of Shakespeare’s original play in order to fit it into a 2 hour, ten-minute runtime. Still, Pacino felt that Radford’s effort ought to have been acclaimed and relatively well received, meaning that the actor equally thought that more directors should try their hand at bringing Shakespeare to the big screen.
“I do believe, and I will always believe, that Shakespeare on film is really something that should be tried more often because it is an opportunity to take the humanity that Shakespeare writes into characters and express it,” Pacino told the BBC at the time. Of course, there have been many acclaimed film versions of Shakespeare, including several by Kenneth Branagh and the 1990s iteration of Romeo and Juliet by Baz Luhrmann.
We know well the endless talent that Al Pacino has as an actor, so it makes sense that he would have a deep interest in one of the greatest playwrights of all time. Thankfully, Pacino has been able to explore his passion on a handful of brilliant occasions, which has undoubtedly extended his love and admiration for the Bard.
