How Jeff Bridges saved Al Pacino at the Oscars
The 1970s was a time when the biggest actors in Hollywood were as noted for their off-screen exploits as they were there performances, something that left Al Pacino in a spot of bother one of the first times he attended the Academy Awards.
Even though he’d already been nominated twice before in the ‘Best Supporting Actor’ and ‘Best Actor’ categories for The Godfather and Serpico, respectively, Pacino had only ever actually turned up in person at the ceremony once until he was shortlisted a third time at the 1975 edition after an unforgettable turn in The Godfather Part II.
“I’m sitting there, and it wasn’t at all like you expect. I sat there in this big event, and I was with a friend,” he said to Jimmy Kimmel. “And I had a few things… I was not completely myself, so everything is tolerable”. Liquid and/or chemical assistance may not have been the best course of action, especially when it transpired that Pacino had absolutely no clue how the Oscars worked.
Sitting next to him was Jeff Bridges, who himself had been nominated that year as ‘Best Supporting Actor’ after co-starring with Clint Eastwood in classic crime caper Thunderbolt and Lightfoot, but it was hardly his first rodeo as an attendee.
“I turned to Jeff Bridges, and the strangest way, he was just sitting there,” Pacino continued. “Because he was also nominated. And I said, ‘Hi.’ Because I didn’t know him, so I knew he was Jeff Bridges, but I’d never met him. So I said, ‘Hi.’ He said, ‘Yes, hi.’ Okay. He hasn’t seen my films, right?”
Regardless of whether or not Bridges was familiar with the work of the guy sitting next to him, he was thoroughly bemused by what came next. “But I look at him, and I said, ‘I don’t think they’re gonna get to the Best Actor category,” Pacino said. “So he looked at me, and he said, ‘What do you mean?’”
“I said, ‘Well it’s an hour, and it’s over. And they didn’t get to that category,’” he elaborated. “He gave me a look, until this day I’ll never forget it. Like, ‘Where do you come from, who are you?’ And I just looked at him, and he said, ‘It’s three hours.’” Armed with that devastating information, Pacino “collapsed,” but not before confirming “I did get higher as the night went on, yes.”
Such was his level of inebriation, Pacino was thrilled he didn’t end up winning and having to be trotted out onstage in front of Hollywood’s best and brightest “because I never would have made it.” He did get his Oscar eventually when Scent of a Woman finally secured him that ‘Best Actor’ prize, but he was in much better shape that time when he gave a victory speech.
