The story of how Diane Keaton stopped Al Pacino from quitting acting: “This is your picture”
Having been a fixture on the silver screen since the early 1970s and remaining a prolific presence in his mid-80s, it’s impossible to imagine a version of Hollywood where Al Pacino threw in the towel four decades ago, even though his legacy had been secured long before then.
In fairness, Pacino could have buggered off before the 1980s had even started and still be remembered as a modern great, after he’d spent the previous eight years repeatedly enhancing his credentials as one of the best in the business through his towering performances in films like the first two Godfather movies, Scarecrow, Serpico, and Dog Day Afternoon.
As time went on, though, he was feeling increasingly unfulfilled, even if roles in Author! Author! and Scarface made it perfectly clear he wasn’t phoning it in. That would come much later, and he’d be the first to admit it because he went broke and started chasing the money, but none of that would have happened had Diane Keaton not made a life-changing intervention on his behalf.
The two had an on-again, off-again relationship, and even when it ended, they remained close friends. After feeling burned out by 1985’s Revolution, which was slated by critics and tanked at the box office, Pacino was fully prepared to exit stage left and draw a permanent line under his association with cinema.
It would be another four years before he returned to the screen, and when he did, it was because of her. “Well, Sea of Love came because I was together with Diane Keaton at the time, and she was concerned,” he explained to Esquire. “She was like, ‘What are you doing?’ I just enjoyed being with her.”
Pacino knew he was “fortunate” because he’d earned enough money that he didn’t need to come back unless he really wanted to. “I still had my career, so I was still getting offers,” he said. “And I remember reading good stuff, but I just didn’t want to do it. Then Diane got me the script to Sea of Love. She said, ‘This is your picture’. And I thought there was a character there.”
He hadn’t set foot on a film set since Revolution wrapped principal photography in July 1985, but at Keaton’s urging, he dipped his toes back into thespianism. Well, he didn’t so much dip as dive, since Sea of Love was a mammoth 19-week shoot that kicked off in May 1988, but it was worth it and then some.
Harold Becker’s noir thriller recouped its budget almost six times over in ticket sales, landed Pacino the best reviews he’d gotten in years, and earned him a Golden Globe nomination for ‘Best Actor – Drama’. He’d been bitten by the acting bug again, and since Sea of Love was released in 1989, he’s never gone longer than two years without appearing in a movie.
Keaton has a strong claim to being named modern Hollywood’s most influential actor, but one of her more unsung contributions was convincing Pacino not to quit when he was ready to wash his hands of the business altogether.
