“You laugh for hours afterwards”: Al Pacino names the greatest comedy actor of all time
Much like his old friend and fellow industry icon, Robert De Niro, Al Pacino has popped up in a few comedies in his Hollywood dotage, despite never being celebrated as a particularly funny guy.
Mercifully, he’s done it a lot less frequently than De Niro, who’s starred in far too many shitty comedies to name and shame here, but Pacino was in Gigli, so there’s that. He was also in Jack and Jill, but the ludicrous gusto with which he performs the Dunkaccino scene just about makes up for the rest of it.
That’s not to say he can’t be funny, because the Academy Award-winning veteran is hilarious in Michael Mann’s Heat when he flies off on one of his bug-eyed tangents, with Glengarry Glen Ross, Dick Tracy, Danny Collins, and even Once Upon a Time in Hollywood highlighting his comic chops to varying extents.
Believe it or not, though, Pacino used to be a comedian. Before he broke into the acting business, he would write and perform stand-up shows when he was a struggling thespian who’d be lucky if he could land a part in an off-off-Broadway show, never mind off-Broadway, with the real thing a pipedream.
He’s also responsible for pushing De Niro into his 21st-century reinvention as the grumpy old man who relentlessly mugs for the cameras in so many reviled attempts at tickling audience funny bones, which is pretty unforgivable, looking at how much time the Raging Bull legend has wasted on farce.
Still, the erstwhile Michael Corleone, Frank Serpico, and Tony Montana has taste, or at least he did in the 1970s, when he was asked to cast his gaze across the rib-tickling landscape for the best on offer, citing one manic writer, director, producer, and star as having mastered the art of cracking him up not only during their films, but for a long time after that.
“Mel Brooks will have these flashes in his films; you laugh for hours afterwards,” Pacino offered. “I wonder how he is, what he’s like.” The answer to that is simple: he’s Mel Brooks, he doesn’t have an off switch, and the person seen onscreen is the exact same guy you’ll get every moment of the day, whether the cameras are on him or not.
By the end of the ’70s, Brooks was the biggest name in mainstream comedy, as you’d expect from the brains behind The Producers, Blazing Saddles, Young Frankenstein, Silent Movie, and High Anxiety. Today, he’s one of the most venerated living legends the art form has to offer, and Pacino is far from the only person to anoint him as the pinnacle of the art form.
From Your Show of Shows to 2027’s Spaceballs sequel, Brooks has remained at the forefront of comedy for seven uninterrupted decades, and you don’t get to enjoy that kind of longevity without being one of the all-time greats, whether it’s Al Pacino saying it or anyone else.
