The 85-year-old actor talks the legacy of his stirring 1975 drama, his love of YouTube, fake death rumours and why he won’t discuss politics
T
he lions of 1970s cinemas are now lions in winter. “I’m so sad about Redford,” says Al Pacino, a day after the death of Robert Redford, his fellow octogenarian actor. “I liked him so much. He was such a sweetheart.”
Perhaps it is because he is currently filming King Lear that Pacino is preoccupied with our collective crawl toward death. He recently rewatched his younger self in Dog Day Afternoon, a Hollywood classic that celebrates its 50th anniversary on Sunday, and was struck by how many of the cast are now gone.
“It hits you, seeing all those people in Dog Day,” the 85-year-old says by phone from Los Angeles. “Can you imagine how you feel? Wow. It’s like a dream. You’re dreaming. You have a dream of someone and you’re so happy about the dream and then you wake up and they’re not there any more? They don’t even exist – in three dimensions anyway.”
