by Leslie Rigoulot Park City, Utah January 28, 1996

Background: Al Pacino is the screen writer and director of "Looking for Richard" which had it's world premiere at Sundance. Portions of Richard III are interlaced with discussion about Richard, acting, theater and Shakespeare. It features: Al Pacino, Winona Ryder, Alec Baldwin, Aidan Quinn, Kevin Spacey, Estelle Parsons, Kevin Kline, Kenneth Branagh, Sir John Gielgud, James Earl Jones and Vanessa Redgrave. Al Pacino is here to answer any questions the press may have concerning Richard.

I've always been in movies, I never did them on my own. Maybe because I didn't start out to make a film. It started out as an experiment, an idea I had. It reminds me of a short Italian film where the mayor comes to lay the first brick in a building and everyone applauds. So he lays another one. And they cheer. So his assistant says to do another. And pretty soon he is doing the whole building. And this is the same kind of thing, one thing led to another. It started as a thing I thought I would do and send out to schools. I thought it had some kind of educational merit. And because I think the seed of it started in schools. In the late seventies I went out and was touring some schools, colleges and I would recite poetry. I would take sections of things I enjoyed myself and there would be back and forth questions. Everyone of these I would mention Shakespeare and I was surprised at how few of the kids had even read Hamlet. And I remember that I would talk about the play and then read an excerpt. By doing that they would get tuned, they would find the equinox from their world to the Shakespeare world and make the jump. And I forgot about it. Years later I was asked to do Richard III as a movie, I had done it on stage, and I though I wouldn't do it as a movie. I couldn't see myself doing it. Olivier had done it and it was done. Then I got this idea and this would be a way of doing it. It gradually turned into this. I thought it would be on television or something. Then six months ago I thought it might get theatrical release.

No, I don't think of myself as a director. You see by the film that it came out of my head, it was my idea and I was just doing it a step at a time. If I were to direct again it would have to be something that I have a strong feeling about because it is a whole way of looking at things. And I don't have that as much. But the good thing about it is the control. (Laughs)

I thought I would free associate. You'll notice I have different looks in the picture, It went on for years. And I had wonderful help from the editors to construct the story I had in my head. I would take a situation and I would set it up.

Knowing the right people. (Laughs) Some actors just wanted to watch, it was such chaos. There are some American actors who would like to do Shakespeare and they could do it without the onus on it, so much commercial pressure. Some actors did it for nothing. I know because we didn't pay them much but they sent me the checks to put back into the movie. It took three and a half years to make it and I made three movies in between and two plays. And documentaries take that long, but I'm not sure what this is.

In school we read Romeo and Juliette, I saw Marlon Brando in Julius Caesar. And all the great English actors. I talk in the movie with James Earl Jones about what it is like to be able to express yourself through Shakespeare. I enjoyed that.