Al Pacino says ‘it’s fun’ to be a new dad at 84

The Godfather has never been a godfather. At least, he is pretty sure that is the case.

One of the biggest film stars of all time, Al Pacino is sitting in a suite in a Beverly Hills hotel, looking surprised at the idea that this is an honour which has passed him by.

“I’m not convinced, but I don’t hang with people who’d ask me that, I guess,” he muses.

“I don’t remember anybody asking me that.”

If you are Al Pacino’s godchild and he has forgotten, as his character Michael Corleone famously said in The Godfather, “it’s not personal.”

Pacino has spent a lot of time recently looking back over his life, because at the age of 84, the star of films including Dog Day Afternoon, Heat and The Irishman has written his autobiography, titled Sonny Boy, after what his mother called him.

He explains that “part of the reason” he wanted to commit his life to paper was becoming a father for a fourth time last year, aged 83 – to a boy, who is now 16 months old, called Roman.

The book is a way of guaranteeing that the baby will have the opportunity to learn about his father’s story.

“I want to be around for this child. And I hope I am,” he shares.

“I hope I stay healthy, and he knows who his dad is, of course.”

Pacino, who has never married, is no longer with Roman’s mother, the film producer Noor Alfallah, but they are co-parenting. However, from what he says, most of his day-to-day involvement is limited to online contact.

“He does text me from time to time,” is what Pacino says about Roman.

“Everything he does is real. Everything he does is interesting to me. So, we talk. I play the harmonica with him on the other video thing, and we have made this kind of contact. So, it’s fun.”

Al Pacino, once again winning hearts and minds with an on-screen performance.

Friends have been contacting Al Pacino asking him why he’s written a memoir, and he admits to “sort of regretting it”.

Over the years he had turned down several offers but decided that now “enough has happened in my life it could possibly be interesting enough for someone to read”.

What he found particularly enjoyable was looking back over his childhood, growing up in New York’s South Bronx.

And it is clear that he has no problem revisiting his biggest films.

The Godfather

It is more than 50 years since Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather made Pacino famous. Its sequel, The Godfather Part II, has its 50th anniversary this December. Both films won Best Picture at the Oscars. (There was also The Godfather Part III in 1990, which Pacino says had “problems”).

The truth is that Pacino was almost not part of them.

At the time, things were rather different. He was literally almost made an offer he could not refuse.

Source: BBC