The greatest role Al Pacino never played, according to Al Pacino: “A dream of mine”
Almost every actor who’s accomplished even half as much as Al Pacino would be happy with their lot, but even legends can live to rue the role that got away.
Having been one of the most recognisable figures in Hollywood since the early 1970s, it stands to reason that Pacino could have ticked the part off his to-do list a while ago, but since he’s never been one of those actors who also produce and develop their own projects, the stars haven’t quite aligned.
The Academy Award-winning veteran has dipped his toes into more creative waters on the odd occasion, but when he did, it was to fund, produce, and play the leading role in The Local Stigmatic, the experimental 1990 drama that was never released in cinemas and withheld from the public for years until finally arriving on home video 17 years later.
He also directed the 2000 independent drama Chinese Coffee and the docudrama Salomé three years later, but neither of them made much of a splash beyond the latter giving Jessica Chastain one of her first showcases, with Pacino describing the up-and-comer as the second coming of Marlon Brando.
There’s also the small matter of his finances: if Pacino was forced into making terrible Adam Sandler comedies and woeful straight-to-video crime thrillers because he nearly went broke, he wasn’t really in a position to will his dream role into existence, especially when it wouldn’t have come cheap.
However, in 2015, when a smattering of his recent outings included such modern masterpieces as The Son of No One, Misconduct, and Stand Up Guys, the Godfather icon reiterated his desire to bring one of history’s most famous figures to life, something he’d been hoping to do for years, if not decades.
“Napoleon has been a dream of mine for a long time,” he declared. “It’s come close, but this time it really could happen. There’s a great script about his last years on Saint Helena.” Napoleon Bonaparte has been the subject of countless films, but the one thing they all have in common is that none of them starred Al Pacino in the leading role.
Another flaw in the master plan was that the French military leader died at the age of 51, and when the Scent of a Woman scenery-inhaler signalled his intentions to finally try getting it onto the starting blocks, he was already in his mid-70s, and since he’s now in his late 80s, it feels safe to say it’s not going to happen.
Peak-era Pacino as Napoleon could have been a sight to see, and even late-stage Pacino would have been worth watching, with there being every chance he would have approached the part so exaggeratedly and over-the-top that it could have been one of those car crash performances you can’t take your eyes off. Sadly, it wasn’t to be.
