A lot of actors choose parts by the scripts, but I don't trust reading the scripts that much. I try to get some friends together and read a script aloud. Sometimes I read scripts and record them and play them back to see if there's a movie. It's very evocative; it's like a first cut because you hear 'She walked to the door,' and you visualize all these things. 'She opens the door' . . . because you read the stage directions, too.

[Salomaybe] is my presentation, my vision of the world. Not so much to satisfy the audience at large.

I destroy the painting as soon as I can see what it is. When I can make out something in it, I destroy it because it's no longer coming from my unconscious.

I can see [ talent or curiosity for acting] in my oldest daughter [Julia Marie Pacino]. I don't know how long she'll run away from it, but it's there in her.

My first language was shy. It's only by having been thrust into the limelight that I have learned to cope with my shyness.

Certainly the movies were always in the air for me. I come from the era when actors thought it was a big deal to be in the movies.

Our life is looking forward or looking back, that's it. Where is the moment?