Al Pacino doesn't like talking to the press. A star for 27 of his 58 years, little is known about him. He rarely has much to say about his films and he refuses any references to his private life. Never married, he has never discussed former girlfriends Jill Clayburgh, Marthe Keller or Diane Keaton. He has a six-year-old daughter with dancer Jan Tarrant, and, typically, refuses to talk about his recent break-up with Australian TV reporter Lyndall Hobbs or his new flame, actress Beverly D'Angelo, the star of the "National Lampoon's Vacation" series. So, meeting Pacino at the Essex hotel in New York, it is astonishing to find "The Devil's Advocate" star relaxed and forthcoming.

"You have to adjust to being in the public eye," says Pacino. "I know actors who had difficulties with it, and people who have left their careers because of it. I have stayed." He smiles. "I like things that are difficult." Still, Pacino always goes in the back way to events, and in the '80s gave up acting for six years. "It was a very important time for me," he says of his hiatus, which began after 1983's flop "Revolution" and ended with his comeback in 1989's "Sea of Love." "I wanted to get out of the spotlight, so I could see. When I came back, I dealt with things better." Not to mention, after eight nominations, he won the 1993 Best Actor Academy Award for "Scent of a Woman."

"To win the award was like winning a gold medal," he says. "It lasted for weeks. I never had that amazing feeling before. Success is sweeter now that it continues. As long as success doesn't become your goal, you have the best of both worlds."

In person, Pacino looks as young and energetic as he does on-screen in "The Devil's Advocate," in which he plays the Devil in search of Keanu Reeves' soul. Elegantly dressed in a black suit, he talks enthusiastically of his role. But is it true that he and Reeves did not get along?

"That's absolutely untrue," insists Pacino. "We didn't socialize, but there's a lot of people I've worked with over the years that I didn't socialize with but liked a lot. I never had one bad moment with Keanu."

But he has had bad moments in his past. Born in Harlem on April 25, 1940, Alfredo James Pacino began acting at the tender age of six. "I was never allowed out alone, so my mother used to take me to the movies and I'd come home and act out all the parts," he recalls. His mother was encouraging. So was his teacher, who persuaded his mother to let him do children's theater. "It was a lonely childhood. With no brothers and sisters and having to stay off the streets, I had no friends. I felt isolated and odd. So, acting kept me sane."

Pacino was dubbed The Actor at school and after dropping out--he flunked every subject except English--he drifted for several years, working as a messenger, a supermarket clerk, a furniture mover and a cinema usher. He shined shoes, sold newspapers, polished fruit. Finally, Pacino ended up at New York's famed Actor's Studio. "I auditioned on a lark, and the studio became very important to me," he says. "I had a place I could go and work."

For eight years he hung out with other artists in Greenwich Village, doing children's theater in cafÈs and making a living passing hats around. "There's a certain freedom in being broke," Pacino says. "There were no responsibilities. Then I got lucky," he says, referring to landing the lead role in 1971's "Panic in Needle Park." The films that made him a legend--"Godfather," "Serpico" and "Dog Day Afternoon"--followed. "Success threw me. I had operated my whole life a little out of things and suddenly I was accepted. You lose sight of what you started for. I couldn't cope. Didn't know who I was. I tried analysis. Lasted a few sessions. Work became my therapy."

And drinking. Pacino admits that when he hit the big time, he also hit the bottle. Jill Clayburgh even had a special tray installed in his bath so that he could carry on boozing while bathing. "At first, drinking was part of the acting culture," Pacino claims. "After the theater, I needed a drink...something to land me. I had been to shrinks and they didn't calm me down as much as a good belt of liquor. But it becomes a problem when you enjoy being out of work more than working." Pacino stopped drinking in 1977 and hasn't touched a drop since. "Now it's ice cream and cookies," he smiles. "Sometimes I think about it, but then I ask 'What would it give me? Only problems.'"

Pacino is famous for being a perfectionist and a Method Actor; he lives his roles, something that has worried many of his directors. Of 1975's "Dog Day Afternoon," director Sidney Lumet said, "Al wouldn't let go of the character for a moment. If the day's work demanded a lunatic, he was a lunatic all day long."

During the filming of his 1973 police drama "Serpico," the actor became so convinced he was a cop he tried to arrest someone. Even "Donnie Brasco" co-star Johnny Depp told Pacino that he thought the actor was crazy. "I said, 'I had no idea that you were certifiably insane,'" recalls Depp. "He looked at me and said, 'You too, I think, are a little messed up.'"

Pacino smiles at such stories. "Let's not forget, once I played a lawyer and somebody was having a problem with a contract, and I said, 'Let me have a look at this.' I just forget myself."

The biggest problem Pacino has these days is what to do when he's not working. "I became my own worst enemy by being overly careful and turning down film offers," he says. "When you don't make many movies, each one becomes overly important." Recently he has picked up speed. In the last three years, he has starred in "Heat," "Two Bits," "City Hall," "Looking for Richard," "Donnie Brasco" and "The Devil's Advocate." "I realized that it's okay to make lots of films and not worry about each of them being a hit," he says, although he does admit that "The Godfather" was special. "It changed my career and my life. It's original and for some reason, people relate to it."

But for Pacino, he keeps a distance from people he works with. "If it gets too personal, it has a tendency to backfire," he says, perhaps referring to his affair with "Carlito's Way" co-star Penelope Ann Miller, who broke his code of silence and revealed details of their affair. "You keep [working relationships] business-like and they are better and healthier." In the same way, facing personal questions Pacino gets jumpy and his answers are monosyllabic. But this much we know: he shares his house in Sneedon's Landing, on the banks of New York's Hudson River, with his five dogs. Three days a week, he sees his daughter, Julie, who lives with her mother, about whom, Pacino stresses, he doesn't talk. Of his love life, Pacino insists, "I've always felt that part of my life is private, and I just don't discuss it. I was almost married a couple of times and don't know how I didn't get married. I think it's because marriage is a state of mind, an emotional feeling, not a contract." Of his future he says, "The adventure of what you find out from acting is still interesting to me. Work and love are what we need. One or the other, you get by. When you have both, it's bliss. And that's what I'm working on."