Al Pacino Rehearsed a 21-Page Scene for ‘Once Upon a Time in Hollywood’ With Leonardo DiCaprio, Then Tarantino Cut It to Two Minutes: ‘I’m Not Faulting Him’

Al Pacino writes in his new memoir “Sonny Boy” that a 21-page scene he filmed with Leonardo DiCaprio for Quentin Tarantino’s “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” got hacked down in the editing room to just two minutes of screen time. Not that Pacino blames Tarantino or finds him at fault. The Oscar-winning actor is grateful to the director, as “Hollywood” is one of a few late-career projects that made Pacino “way more famous now than I ever was.”

“Famous in a different way, not so much because of the work I’m doing, but through my associations with various people and my appearing in certain things, and from living in Hollywood,” Pacino writes. “I got lucky. I was in three films in a row that in different ways made a real impact, starting with ‘Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.’ I didn’t get paid the big bucks for it, but I was working with Quentin Tarantino, Leo DiCaprio, Brad Pitt, and Margot Robbie, and I did like the part. That’s why I did it, but I said to my lawyer, ‘How do I do this without being paid?'”

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“I had a 21-page scene with Leo that we rehearsed together. Leo had a whole monologue that he delivered brilliantly, where he said everything that needed to be said about this industry in 1969,” Pacino adds. “But films have their own rhythms, and the scene turned out to be about two minutes when Tarantino was done with it. I’m not faulting him for it. He had a reason to do it.”

Pacino starred in “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” as Marvin Schwarz, the wheeling-and-dealing Hollywood agent of DiCaprio’s Rick Dalton. The actor said Tarantino’s movie is “a great film. And the mere fact that I was in it gave me some sort of cachet.”

“Next comes ‘The Irishman.’ Bob De Niro and Scorsese came to me years before, talking about what they were going to do. And I was all for it,” Pacino writes. “And then finally, it’s a script. I go out and do that. I have a huge part. I get a nomination for an Oscar, putting me up against Brad Pitt, Joe Pesci, Anthony Hopkins and Tom Hanks. I had no problem that night accepting my loser status among those guys. When I got nominated for ‘Irishman,’ I brought my kids to the Oscars. What’s better than that?”

Movies such as “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” and “The Irishman” returned Pacino to working with some of the industry’s most revered auteur filmmakers. He admits in the book that once he turned 70 years old he started taking any acting job that offered him big money as he was broke at the time. Prior to that, Pacino “was doing films if I thought I related to the part and felt I could bring something.” He was able to return to that mentality thanks to “Hollywood” and “The Irishman.”

Pacino’s memoir “Sonny Boy” is now available to purchase.

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