and so was cagney. orson welles says cagney�*s the greatest actor that he ever saw.have to understand that you get parts that are suited, and if you score in those roles, there's more to come — when you take the characters i've played, you take godfather, you take donnie brasco, different, not the same people. you take scarface, certainly different than those two. carlito's way, different. so i don't see a similarity, even. they belong in a certain spectrum, but they're different. i don't see repeating in those characters. i try to avoid that. you've played a lot of real characters as well. everyone from hoffa to phil spector. now your book's out there. yeah. if someone bought the rights to that, how would you feel about your life story being turned into a film with someone playing you? i would be sort of embarrassed, but it's ok, you know? imean... why would you be embarrassed? i don't know why. i mean, because it's not me, really. but that's ok, you know? i mean, i did serpico, right? serpico, big picture — but, i mean, when it was on the stands to buy the book, an