How Al Pacino blew his solely likelihood of working with Bob Dylan

For Al Pacino, the concept of working with Bob Dylan was nearly too good to be true, however in a second of respectable professionalism, the actor turned down the possibility to star alongside the enduring folks singer due to sensible causes. It appears as if Pacino made the correct choice, nevertheless, as a result of the film, Pat Garrett and Billy the Child, was a infamous failure.

Whereas it did spawn an awesome soundtrack from Dylan, together with his basic hit ‘Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door’, Sam Peckinpah’s movie was panned by critics, though the minimize that was launched was removed from what the director had in thoughts. It was a tense manufacturing, marred by disagreements between the enduring filmmaker and MGM, together with the run-time. Head of MGM, James Aubrey, tried to take issues into his personal palms, reducing the film all the way down to a considerably shorter size, a lot to Peckinpah’s dismay.

The mission, which starred Dylan alongside a choice of stars like James Coburn, Kris Kristofferson, and Katy Jurado, was a catastrophe, and Peckinpah’s alcoholism solely made taking pictures tougher. Launched in 1973, the movie got here firstly of Pacino’s profession, shortly after his look in The Godfather, so the actor evidently made the correct choice in lacking out on the film, as an alternative showing within the acclaimed Scarecrow and Serpico that yr.

So, why did Pacino flip down the function? As a lot as he was eager to work alongside Dylan, Pacino knew that, at this pivotal stage in his burgeoning Hollywood profession, he needed to take care of his well being. That, and he didn’t wish to journey a horse.

In his memoir Sonny Boy, the actor wrote, “They supplied me the function of Billy the Child in Sam Peckinpah’s Pat Garrett and Billy the Child. I liked Peckinpah. One of many best administrators ever. Might you think about doing a film and attending to act with Bob Dylan? And who wouldn’t wish to play Billy the Child? I believed that was one thing I may do. Then I learn the script, and I needed to do some rewrites, correcting the script with Peckinpah, the best way I often work with administrators. I may simply see it.”

He added, “I believed, I’m not getting on any horses. They’re too large. I’ll be down in Mexico with Peckinpah, and I’ll in all probability die of alcohol poisoning as a result of I’d be round it a lot. And I handed on it.”

As an alternative, musician and actor Kristofferson took on the a part of Billy the Child, though it’s fascinating to think about what Pacino might need been like within the function. Maybe the film would’ve turned out otherwise with Pacino, who was rapidly proving himself to be one of many best actors of his era, commanding the display. Nevertheless, with the quantity of behind-the-scenes points with MGM that affected the mission, it looks like the film was doomed for failure.

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