>> from our studios in new york city, this is "charlie rose." charlie: alta chino is here. he is an oscar, tony, and emmy award-winning actor.

the studio wants said of him some actors play characters. i'll pacino becomes them. here is a look at just some of his work. >> you stole my wife. you think you can steal my wife? >> i love you. i was going to go out and score for you. >> the reality is we don't wash our own laundry. i don't care who gets it anymore. including myself. where am i going to go? >> i knew it was you fredo. you broke my heart. you broke my heart. >> get over there, will you?

attica! >> say hello to my little friend. >> you want to know the first rule? you would know if you have spent a day in your life. you never open your mouth until you know what the shot is. >> there was a time i have seen. boys like these, younger than these, their arms torn out and their legs ripped off. but there is nothing like the site of an amputated spirit. there is no prostatic for that. >> if it's between you and some poor bastard who's wife is going

to be turned into a widow, brother, you are going down. >> the top scientist, a corporate officer. this guy is the ultimate insider. he's got something to say and i want him to say it. >> you may call it mercy killing. i call it something else. i call it a medical service for an agonizing and terribly suffering patient. charlie: many of his contemporaries have spoken about him on this show. >> is almost impossible for him to do it in false. he doesn't know how to. he won't be able to get out of the chair if there's a line of truth in him that's in violetate. it were you see the magnificence is in earnst.

>> he is technical. he knows every camera, every hit, every mark. never fails. he knows the cutting, the editing. and within that very structured form, very tight, he is utterly free. and just so inspiring to be around. charlie: pacino starred nfl meditation of the novel "the humbling." >> oh. look at this! >> this is emily. >> emily. let me take that. oh! >> are you hurt? are you ok? look at what happened to him. these are some of my things. >> don't you think it's time you

told your parents about us? charlie: in a separate film just released, pacino plays an aging rock star that receives a letter from john lennon and decides to change his life. >> hello, l.a.! see those golden girls? >> they are grandstanding. >> no way. you don't surprise a guy my age. you give me a heart attack. >> you remember who you wrote to when you were a kid? john lennon read it and he wrote you a letter in 1971. can you believe it? >> stay true to yourself. stay true to your music. i'm a joke.

i haven't written a song in 30 years. i'm having a breakdown. i'm broken. there's nothing left to break. what would have happened if i had gotten that letter when i was supposed to? >> so you are staying indefinitely here? are you on drugs? >> currently or in general? >> currently? >> no. >> are you asking me to dinner? >> i am meeting someone for the first time. how do i look? >> slightly ridiculous. you expect it to be easy meeting your grown son for the first time? why are you here? >> just making some changes. >> this will be the last time i ever see you. >> i don't care enough to be

angry. i have a good life. >> you shouldn't give up. good night, danny. >> you are nervous. i miss that. >> i spent my entire life becoming the man you aren't. >> i don't need you to say anything, i just need you to leave. >> you will have to deal with it because i'm here. you can't buy redemption. >> you never give up. >> some dinners are worth fighting for. charlie: danny collins. terrific cast. pacino: what a cast. charlie: when you see that montage, what do you think about this career that you have had and continue to have the? -- to have?

pacino: it baffles me. you spend your life just moving along. it's one of the perks, but also one of the issues you have when you are with a group of people. and you know that we all sort of feel that way. they are transient. charlie: someone said gypsies. actors are gypsies. pacino: they are. they have it in their spirit. there is a distance you have. look at it and say, you want to call it developmental. i remember because they have a special evening for kazam. he got up on the stage and he said, wow.

how am i still walking around? i remember they did one for me actually. there is no rehab for this. i never was in rehab. charlie: john lennon's letter in danny collins, stay true to yourself. have you? pacino: here and there. i've feared off. i don't know. i don't make those kind of -- i don't think of myself as being true to myself. i can feel when i'm not. i can feel when i got off the track. more in the performance of personal life. it's a bit too random for me. i'm playing characters that have

lived these lives all over the world and stuff. and gone to the accessibility of things in life and the world. charlie: do you keep saying yes to parts? you have these movies coming out. and these questions, i want to walk the other way. pacino: it's true. i think i've gotten out of something. the people with campers and wires on the floor, i just looked at the other side. i know what they are going through. it's different when you direct a movie. and it's also different for an actor as you prepare for a movie because there is the rehearsal period. we don't have that today.

but early on movies we had really substantial rehearsal periods. and developed characters and relationships with other actors. in this movie, we had no rehearsal. danny collins. charlie: because of the budget? pacino: yeah. that's what it is. it's the budget. and my house on the weekends -- charlie: why do you do it? because you love it? because it's who you are? why do you do it? you have made all the money in the world. you have a great family, all of the things anybody would aspire to. international fame. and you said, charlie, it's what i do. you say, i'm an actor.

it's what i do. pacino: you have the text. i live by the text. and when i see that text, i don't want to do it -- charlie: you want to be in movies? pacino: i don't need it. i read it. and the process is ever-changing because there is a time or you want to do something because it challenges you and you feel you will learn something from it. so you do it. you can fall flat on your face. and you deal with the things in life, the children. things come up. at the same time, that script -- i read one the other day that i won't say what it is.

and it's that "they pull me back in" kind of thing. charlie: is it the excitement of getting inside of the character? pacino: it's the world the writer creates. it's the text. i have an opportunity to do this again. or for the first time. and there is something about this thing that i do. charlie: this is for you. does this "add value" to this? pacino: yes. or if i can do something that relates to something inside of me. that i've been wanting to express or talk about. when i first started, i think what kept me an actor is when i

realized i could speak through this then you -- venue. and i could speak about things in life that i couldn't before. i could not find the words. but the playwright allowed me to express something. charlie: the actor and the text. it gives you the possibility to make it something bigger? that is what an actor adds. pacino: and to move on from a life you know to a life you may not know and find out about it. and get a sense that you are involved. charlie: the humbling. the 2009 novel. you liked it. pacino: yes. charlie: what attracted you to it? did you see things as an actor that you have thought about?

losing your skills in a sense? how did you see it? pacino: i saw it as a potential movie. at a certain point in life, your age comes -- charlie: it happens to everybody. i see people every day that our athletes. pacino: the athletes is a more obvious one. charlie: the thing about acting is it's a bit like people say you should not read certain things until you're 30 because you may not understand it. pacino: you shouldn't do hamlet until your 40. except you have to do it earlier because you won't do it if you wait until 40. you learn to much and you know it's impossible.

i didn't do it. i never felt i was right for hamlet. i love the play. probably my favorite play. i never did it. i did scenes from it. but i never felt that i could exist in that play. that is the next step. charlie: it was hamlet and someone -- pacino: it was strasburg. i was afraid to do anything. i got to the actors studio. i would go home. throughout my life, i have committed to memory -- charlie: you were almost a teenager? pacino: early 20's.

i have these great monologues in me. and i had the wonderful -- what a peasant slave am i. i had them committed to my mind. i went for the first time. finally, i got up the nerve to sign up. we strasburg lifts the paper and he was able to pronounce my name. he said, l pal pacino? what's this? hamlet, and the ice man cometh. we take all kinds in here. [laughter] i got up there and i did a ferocious peasant. and i went wild eugene o'neil --

and i was really giving it the old hgung ho. it wasn't that good. it was over and the audience got cheery about it. a lot of commitment and energy. he said, here's what i would like you to do. immediately, this was the genius with him. i want you to do hamlet as hickey from the iceman cometh and hickey as hamlet. i immediately went into it. i did not cause. -- i did not pause. charlie: the character of hamlet and the text of hickey. and hickey as the presence he had. pacino: i learned more that day than i had in my entire life. charlie: the first part of the

book is "he lost his magic or co do you fear." do you fear that? pacino: oh my. as you get older too, the stamina. this character does theater. a performance is a week, -- eight performances a week. they don't even know what character they are playing. we do one a day. the exhaustion and the tools you have as an actor. it your own energy and your own appetite. i don't think you do kingly or -- thing wking lear if you don't have an appetite. you can't walk through it.

maybe if you do a movie of it. charlie: do you want to do lear? pacino: not particularly. charlie: not yet? pacino: there's another one that i've wanted to do as a movie. i can see myself possibly doing it one day as a movie because it is great, of course. but i haven't found my way to lear. charlie: but you love richard. pacino: richard i could possibly do again. i did a reading of it. i was hosting, believe it or not, the 158 anniversary of the theater there. it was a wonderful orchestra. i was the mc of the thing. i don't know how that happened. charlie: not easy. pacino: i found myself doing it.

talking about the first time i heard serious music. classical music. remember the old lewis and stadium here? i heard rite of spring and i was here when stravinsky himself conducted it. i won't forget that. anyway, i did richard. several poems by e cummings. this was a new experience. i loved it. chris plummer does it from time to time. my great friend charlie lawton who passed on a couple years ago -- he said that you should try richard again. i said, yes.

i wondered why he said that. then i went to philadelphia. i'm up there doing richard and it was so different and so much a part of me in a way. charlie: richard hasn't changed. it you changed. pacino: i used to do richard when i was in boston. young early 30's. i would be in the dressing room and i was in the rectory. in church was the only time that we got into it a little bit. it was in the midst of real turmoil in my life. i was drinking. before i would go on and i would come out of the pulpit. now is the winter -- over a microphone. but i wouldn't go out. i would stay in the dressing

room. i had this girl. i won't mention her name. she was a spunky girl. a very young apprentice. she was so smart and so much fun to be with. she was my assistant. i will be there, and she would come in and say "five minutes out." i would say, doesn't matter what it is. i would say, i'm not doing it tonight. she says, no, no no. they're out. i'm not going to do it. you are not going to make me do it. she says yes, i am. it you are going on that stage.

we would have this huge fight and i would hear "places." that was preparation. i was ready to go. but the point is, you get it when you can. it comes to you in the moment. charlie: and you have to find it. pacino: i would call the richard idea at the church of the covenant, inspired richard. i think it was a lot of it by the numbers. a lot of it trying to remember what i have done before. it didn't have the same flavor to it. it wasn't coming in the same place of expression. charlie: inhabiting a character, do you have to find a hook for you? someone once said that when i put on the suit, the character, something like that --

pacino: it does help. charlie: but unlocking the character because you will inhabit the character, what do you look for? anything other than what the text says to you? pacino: yeah. you have to look for that thing that moves you. i like repetition. repetition keeps me green. i love that saying. fresh. because the idea that we do performances over and over again , doesn't that get boring? no. it's in the repetition that the creation comes. that the expression comes. i was doing richard wants. not particularly well. and we couldn't get this court scene with a lot of people in it

and i couldn't understand what i was doing. we would call rehearsal through it. we would think about it, all this kind of work with able together trying to figure out something. the 85th performance of richard, on my 85th entrance, i understood it. i was there. charlie: but not 84. pacino: i just gave up the ghost, i guess. i will keep going on and i found it. remember the great actor sam levine? i was watching the royal family once in the theater and sam levine comes in. opens the doors and comes in. i was a young actor.

it wasn't an entrance. it was something else. it was a gift. he was opening the doors to something spectacular. and you know what it was? he had done it for 50 years. that's a big thing. charlie: did you use that in terms of your performance? pacino: i've done performances where they got worse until they got better. charlie: because you are searching. pacino: i did it all over the world. i remember people talking about wow, he's like a tiger. he's got a back and forth like a leopard in a cage. it was very nice and that's what i was doing. after doing it for four years i found myself in boston.

i think it was the theater there. and i came out and i said the opening soliloquy written by david mamet. i'm on stage for about 10 minutes. and i realized i had not moved. i had not moved from the spot. so what happens, the economy came. it was in there for years. charlie: the act of art in sculpture is getting it down to a size. it is taking a role or obtaining. it is defining it down to where it works for you. stripping away.

so that what you see is the essence of a character of the scene. pacino: sports, too. you say, he didn't do anything. of course, that's what you go for. charlie: you mentioned david mamet. what is it about the two of you? pacino: it's coming out in the fall. charlie: do the words speak to you? does he have a sense of her? -- of character? pacino: i think he and i just hear it. collaborating and he is doing all the work. i am there. someone to bounce off of. i am home thinking about something. a few days later, a week later. just go with that.

charlie: the power of observation. pacino: to call him a great writer is a redundancy. but the same time, he surprises me. charlie: you have done that more than once. pacino: i was in the movie and then i did the play. charlie: i know. pacino: sullivan wanted me to play it. and i thought, yes. this is the time to play because i learned about it in the movie a certain way. with theater, you can just explore more. with movies, it's hard to explain. i knew it would be different.

charlie: do you want to be in my bath? -- macbeth? pacino: i've heard that lately. charlie: it is the myth of the theater that you cannot mention the name. pacino: i don't know. it's just great. charlie: what else is on that list? pacino: maybe doing richard again. that's a part i wanted to play and i was ready to play it. charlie: do you still want to? pacino: the card is before the horse. sometimes you just get it and

you go. in my off time for years, i practically no the longest written part in shakespeare. i know hamlet and i know these parts. i know the words. charlie: because you have practiced? pacino: i practice. it's like shadowboxing until you get in the ring. it's a different story. i love the idea of driving a car. everything is good. you do everything right, you shift, you do this. then you turn the key and the cargoes. what is this? thenthat is the difference of

reversing alone and getting in there with other people. this is fun. charlie: to go act -- pacino: actually, i went to work. we needed money and my family. an economic necessity at the time. i did go to the village at age 17. doing 16 shows a week or whatever play, passing the straw basket around. the audience would drop something. charlie: what is the nature of the friendship? pacino: you could call it symbiotic.

mentor -- i was 17 and he was teaching over there. hp studios. he was a student of strasburg, great people. i was there as a kid. a teenager, really. i took one look at this guy and i came from that. there was a familiarity. ♪

charlie: i'm going to talk about some of the things you have done. i know you have talked about this before. when you did dog day afternoon, did you know that you and sydney had created something? pacino: it's interesting. i remember doing it. we rehearsed for a long time. i remember, as charlie wants said, -- once said, with this picture, you pull the pin and let it go. sydney said to me, it has its

own life now. it has a life of its own. i couldn't tell. i was drinking those days, too. it was kind of an apartment under the bank. both me and judith would be hitting on weed. she played my mother. they were all upstairs. i was downstairs alone. you were hearst -- rehearsed for a monhth. he was pretty much about performance and stuff. when i would go up there, it absorbed me. i came back to the bank and sydney wanted me to reshoot.

it was channeling, in some way it of apple. i had to re-create something. i couldn't get it. charlie: how long does an act to take a part with him? a week? a month? and when it of apparatus if you have to reshoot, can you recapture it? pacino: i have been doing it so long now. i let it go. i used to go back when i was younger. i would come back. in the dressing room, i would

leave. i have to move on. i do it right. it's a line from the play. that was kind of the thing. i had to literally do that. it kind of stuck with me for a while. that place i had to go to. charlie: you did not see him as a gangster? pacino: no. charlie: you saw him as -- pacino: someone that inherited this thing. adnd tit was there. charlie: did not expect to be there at that early time in his life but understood it was his responsibility to family. pacino: i always felt better about him. he had certain ingredients that

would allow him to do what he did. his father saw that and him early on. it's a long story with that one. it was francis that got me to do it. he wanted me to play that part. completely fought for me. to such a degree. i kept saying, francis, it's alright. i will do other things. i was afraid of the role, by the way. charlie: some actors say that's good. it that it's the best thing they can have. if they are not afraid of it they don't really want to do the part. it scares them to be motivated to do it. pacino: when anyone sees you in a role, there is a period where you become well-known what is

known as "bankable." you don't know if somebody wants you because they see you in the part or because you can bank the movie. you can get confused by that. sometimes you do roles -- the best time is when a director once you. charlie: how well did you know marlon brando? pacino: well enough to love him. and i did not know him as well as other people had. i found him to be that kind of sensitivity where he can sort of feel you. he feels your stuff. and he gets very concerned. he was concerned about me. at the time, there was so much controversy. charlie: after godfather? pacino: before. i was shooting it. he came over and put his hand on my shoulders. he knew i was going to go.

i was a man who did not have long left for this that. -- the set. francis wanted me. the studio didn't. they didn't want brando either. charlie: didn't francis bring in panic? pacino: panic is a beautiful movie. charlie: he was the photographer. pacino: just a beautiful directorial -- charlie: francis brought them in. pacino: she brought eight minutes from panic, and brought me in. the part of michael corleone is sort of built. it's contracted -- constructed

from kind of a shadow that turns into this presence. it's my way of getting to that so that by the time you see him on the end -- at the end, he's kind of an enigma. he has that feeling to it. charlie: does that make ii better than i? pacino: i like them both. i has tehe story. it's the original. ii has francis's story. a lot of him is in it. a lot of his personal feelings he gets out about himself charlie:. charlie: brando would get interested in this show. he would call me up and send me

notes. what was his gift? pacino: to define it. the genius of character. that's all i can say. he did cross that line where he had great duty. you have the great movie star including cary grant. he was wonderful to watch. martin was a character actor. the roles were different. charlie: how did he manage to be a star and not play character roles as much as you play stars? you are at the center of these

roles. is it box office? you tell me. pacino: i think it's always been -- some movies i have made, they are different characters i played. i don't know. i'm still doing this thing. i started early. they saw me in this play, and told the great producer marty bergman.

that play, there was something in that play. and i had been acting may be 10 years before that. i did feel, oddly enough, as an explorer in my work experimenting. nobody could even find it in those days. and then to be lauded in a way they upped the stakes.

trying to preserve something i thought i understood earlier on. i thought it was a good thing. i still think it was a good thing. things happen that way. maybe something happened that was a new kind of person. they came out of the 60's, came out of this time in america. people like me were given an opportunity or whatever. i don't know. it was a combination of things. we had this scene in the studio.

on his deathbed remember the time when they were doing this big thing? every teacher brought their student that they wanted to show how they were doing it. and i win this thing. remember when i came to see you, good stuff. and the teacher got up. they thought it was the worst. who do you think you are? what is this about? what was that? why was he doing that?

i'm new here. that in some way, i think it's very dramatic to hear that when charlie says, i don't know if it true. but i do know it was interesting because that was happening. something comes along and you get used to it. in the old days, actors have to pronounce things a certain way. to be seen in the audience. i don't mean to compare myself to people. i was always reading books about actors. and edwin came at a time when he came from a whole other climate. a whole other world.

there is something about the roles i played in this situation and the times we are in and i got lucky. and it's been this thing all my life. everybody says it, but it's true. i remember saying wants to someone, we are all together and actors. at the same time you're doing so well. all this stuff you wanted it.

i think i had to have it. charlie: oh, wow. had to have it. pacino: that's an interesting distinction. one doesn't know. charlie: you had to have it. pacino: believe it or not, i could tell. i knew at some point, this was my time. i knew it was my time that i would be seen. that this part -- you know, i did three plays there. i went to do a part in a play. i got up and did it. and it was not good at all.

as a matter of fact, i remember i was in the dressing room. i heard it on the speaker. and this guy in the dressing room was really excited by this review of the play we were doing. why is he covering it? can i see that? he pushed it over to me. i looked at it and it was a great review. this person, that person, how great. with one exception. it was al pacino in the role, it was terrible. as i was reading it, my queue came on and i had to go on stage. i had to perform after reading that in the play he was criticizing. i laughed. the ability to look at something like that and laugh, it might have helped me a little bit. it hurt.

and the other part, i was ok with. it was always the question of, what do we do? you walk along the street, you see a certain tree. and with actors, if you don't try, you are not going to know. you start to censor yourself. it gets a little uh -- because we don't know. charlie: you have been willing to take risks. thank you for coming. pacino: great talking to you, charlie. charlie: the humbling and danny collins one a singer and the other a theater actor. looking at their own life and what they might have missed and

where they might go. thank you for joining us. see you next time. ♪

>> i'm campbell brown. >> and i'm mark halperin. with all due respect to cookie bryan, the streets aren't for everyone, that's why they made sidewalks. mark: on the show tonight, why clinton won't back down and what does the merck ad say. but first, america's most eloquent politician, benjamin netanyahu. he's given more interviews to u.s. journalists