Q 1

PLAYBOY: You're considered one of the best actors of your generation. And yet some people might say----

Al Pacino: I know, I haven't made a good film since Dog Day Afternoon. Somebody at a press conference once asked me, "Do you think you'll ever be as good as you were in Dog Day?" And I said flatly, "No." That answered that.

Q 2

PLAYBOY: That's 30 years ago. Fans of Scarface may disagree.

Al Pacino: Well, that's one in 30 years. How's that for a batting average? [laughs]

Q 3

PLAYBOY: Come on, we don't have to remind you of what you've done. You even won an Oscar for 1992's Scent of a Woman.

Al Pacino: I'm horsing around here. I don't think I could compare my films. It's a matter of evolving and changing, going one way, then sideways, then up, then down. It's what we do. Everybody who has achieved a certain amount of success as an actor has certain seminal pictures.

Q 4

PLAYBOY: So if you could select five or six of your works to put in a time capsule, which would they be?

Al Pacino: To show who I was? I would have to go back and painstakingly look at every one of the films I've made and discuss it with some people and come up with some conclusions. Just off the top I'd say Godfather I and II, Scarface, Serpico, Looking for Richard and Dick Tracy.

Q 5

PLAYBOY: How do you account for the lasting impact your Scarface character seems to have had? Tony Montana is on T-shirts, sweatshirts, headbands, posters. Rap singers such as Snoop Dogg and baseball players such as David Ortiz have called it their favorite film.

Al Pacino: Scarface somehow captured people's imagination. It has all the ingredients of the movies of old, the guy bucking the odds. It's such a visceral picture--you either go with it or you don't. I must say that I did find I had galvanized my energy when I did that character. Everything sort of came together for me. Scarface was vilified, for the most part, when it came out. It was more of an underground movie. But here it is, almost 25 years later, and it's still surviving with tremendous gusto. That's why you have to stay with a thing if you feel it.