Al Pacino will be attending next month’s Academy Awards, with the 79-year-old actor nominated for playing labour leader Jimmy Hoffa in Martin Scorsese’s “The Irishman”.
Pacino dropped by “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” on Thursday, and recalled his experience at an earlier Oscars, when he was nominated in the Best Actor category for “The Godfather: Part II”.
As Pacino told host Jimmy Kimmel, he apparently had a bit of pharmacological assistance to help him make it through the ceremony, and admitted he had become a bit confused.
“I was sitting there and it wasn’t at all like you’d expect,” Pacino explained. “I went and I was sat there in this big event and I was with a friend. I had a few things, you know. I was not completely myself. So everything was tolerable, you know? The nerves had calmed down.”
According to Pacino, as he sat in his seat and watched the show, sitting next to him was Jeff Bridges, who was likewise nominated that year (in the Best Supporting Actor category for “Thunderbolt and Lightfoot”.)
“I turned to Jeff Bridges — he was also nominated — and I said hi,” said Pacino. “I didn’t know him, but I knew he was Jeff Bridges, but I never met him. He said: ‘Yes? Hi. Okay.’ I thought, ‘He hasn’t seen my films’. But I said to him: ‘I don’t think they’re going to get to the Best Actor category. It’s an hour and they didn’t get to that category.’ He gave me a look to this day — I’ll never forget it — like, ‘Where do you come from, who are you?’ and said, ‘It’s three hours.’”
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Pacino will soon be seen in a rare project for the small screen, playing the leader of a covert group of Nazi hunters in upcoming Amazon Prime Video series “Hunters”.
