“He had a look in his eye”: the moment Al Pacino met Frank Serpico
There are several claims to Al Pacino’s greatest film performances of all time, and almost instantly, most would consider Michael Corleone in The Godfather or Tony Montana in Brian De Palma’s Scarface. However, we should also think about his role in Sidney Lumet’s 1973 neo-noir biographical crime movie Serpico.
In the film, Pacino played the New York Police department detective Frank Serpico, who was noted in the late 1960s for his whistleblowing on corruption within the police force. While some of Pacino’s other film roles are more notable, Serpico serves as the follow-up to his The Godfather performance, which would set up the rest of his excellent career.
Discussing his first moments with the Serpico project, Pacino told GQ: “I read the treatment of it, you know, not the script. They didn’t have a script yet, they had a treatment, and it was interesting, but I couldn’t tell from the treatment. It’s always the script.” The initial project had interested Pacino, but it wasn’t enough to bring him on board just then.
Pacino also admitted that prior to meeting Frank Serpico himself, he had been reluctant to portray him in a movie. “I’ll tell you, I met Frank Serpico; they introduced me to him,” he said. “[Before] I met the person that I was supposed to do, I didn’t wanna play him. It was an odd thing. Not because he was negative or positive, but I just felt I couldn’t be him.”
He continued: “But when I met Frank, I knew there was something I could paint there. There was something that I could sort of serve. He had an earring, long hair, and was strange looking. But he had a look in his eye that I thought, ‘there it is’. I got to know him very well and hung with him.”
Legendary filmmaker Sidney Lumet was handling the film, and Pacino further explained that his relationship with Lumet eventually blossomed after some initial teething problems. He said: “My first time meeting with Sidney. It was an interesting meeting. It was very interesting.”
Pacino continued: “I grew to love him, actually, but the first impression of him was he said a couple of things that seemed a bit off-putting about him. So I felt a little, ‘who does this guy think he is?’ Then I started seeing some of his films. I thought, ‘He’s a great director’. That’s who he is. And then we went on to do Dog Day Afternoon later.”
