Al Pacino & Sidney Lumet: 'Dog Day Afternoon' At 50

Summary

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Podcast Summary: Fresh Air

Episode: Al Pacino & Sidney Lumet: 'Dog Day Afternoon' At 50
Date: October 3, 2025
Host(s): Terry Gross
Guests: Sidney Lumet (archival, 1988), Al Pacino (2024)
Theme: Celebrating the 50th anniversary of the landmark 1975 film Dog Day Afternoon, this episode features archival and recent interviews with director Sidney Lumet and star Al Pacino. The conversations explore the film’s making, its cultural impact, and the evolution of American filmmaking and acting.

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Overview

This special episode of Fresh Air commemorates half a century since the release of Dog Day Afternoon, a groundbreaking film directed by Sidney Lumet and starring Al Pacino. Through archival and new interviews, Terry Gross delves into the film’s backstory, directorial vision, acting craft, and ongoing relevance. The episode illuminates both the collaborative artistry behind the film and its enduring legacy in American cinema.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. The Making and Significance of Dog Day Afternoon

[00:24–02:36]

• The film, based on a real 1972 Brooklyn bank robbery, broke ground with its bold storytelling and focus on marginalized identities.
• Sidney Lumet, known for an improvisational, actor-driven approach, brought vibrancy and realism to the project.
• Extended rehearsals and on-location shootings contributed to the film’s energy and authenticity.

2. Sidney Lumet on Directing, Artistic Control, and Actors

[04:12–21:17]

• Artistic Freedom and Studio System:
  Lumet describes the increased artistic autonomy that came with his success, especially regarding the important right of “final cut” over his films.

  “I don’t think that Louis B. Mayer would have given me final cut, no matter how many hits I’d had.” (Lumet, [05:16])

• Lessons from Past Battles:
  He shares an anecdote about the struggle over the runtime of The Hill, revealing industry pressures and why he insists on creative control.
• Transition from Television to Film:
  Discusses how his TV background made 12 Angry Men (a one-room drama) a natural feature debut, despite others seeing it as a challenge.
• Directing Styles and Adapting to Actors:
  Lumet views his job as adapting to different actor styles rather than imposing his own—collaborating with both American "method" actors and British classic types.

  “I become the kind of director that becomes whatever his actors need.” (Lumet, [11:25])

• On Al Pacino’s Early Performances:
  Lumet analyzes Pacino’s breakthrough in Serpico and Dog Day Afternoon, noting the layers of freedom and guidance needed:

  “He needed a great sense of freedom and a great sense of restriction ... The creation of the character is really Al’s own ... that confidence to know that he could go as far as his feelings would carry him was very important to him.” (Lumet, [13:28–15:55])

• Rehearsal as Crucial Preparation:
  Lumet explains his theater-like, intensive rehearsals as an uncommon but effective way to prepare actors and ensure authenticity during filming.

  “I rehearse very heavily... So it's not as if once we get on camera, this is their first exposure.” (Lumet, [17:20])

3. Dog Day Afternoon: Pivotal Scenes and Cultural Resonance

[12:41–18:55, 39:47–41:29]

• Multiple audio clips from Dog Day Afternoon are featured, spotlighting Pacino’s manic yet vulnerable protagonist.
• The iconic “Attica!” scene is discussed in depth by both Pacino and Lumet, highlighting the spontaneous, collaborative magic between cast and crew.

  “As I was going out, [assistant director Bert Harris] said to me, ‘Listen, Al, come here. Say Attica...’ So I go out, and I don’t know... All of a sudden, I just blurted out. I say, ‘Attica! Remember Attica!’ ... That just got the crowd, man. They just went with it.” (Pacino, [36:11–37:45])

4. Al Pacino on Craft, Career, and Collaborators

[22:31–41:47]

• Recollections of The Godfather and Coppola:
  Pacino reflects humorously on nearly being fired, how Coppola’s vision contrasted with his own doubts, and his casting journey.

  “Francis always wanted me to play Michael. That was in his vision, even though it wasn’t in mine. I’ll tell you that. I thought he might be making a mistake.” (Pacino, [28:43])

• Acting Techniques and Physicality:
  He acknowledges how Michael Corleone’s stillness and intensity contrasted sharply with Sonny’s “nervous energy” in Dog Day Afternoon.

  “I was in the situation, as they say... I guess I was lucky and I just went in that direction and I didn’t do it consciously.” (Pacino, [27:13])

• Working with John Cazale:
  Memories of their collaborations, especially in Dog Day Afternoon, add emotional resonance to Pacino’s recollections.
• Improvisation and the Unexpected:
  Emphasizes the beauty and unpredictability of film sets that are open to improvisation and real reactions—including the crowd’s spontaneous response during the “Attica” sequence.

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Notable Quotes and Memorable Moments

Sidney Lumet

• On maintaining artistic control:

  “The film cannot be touched after you finish editing it, whether in the soundtrack or visually, it's yours.” ([05:43])

• On adapting to actors’ needs:

  “Part of the job of directing is to not make the actors work your way but for you to work as a director any way that makes them comfortable.” ([12:17])

• On Pacino’s performance:

  “It's one of the best pieces of movie acting I've ever seen. It was blinding in its intensity, agonizingly painful.” ([15:04])

Al Pacino

• On the “Attica!” scene:

  “All of a sudden, they just blurted out. I say, ‘Attica! Remember Attica.’ ... That just got the crowd, man. They just went with it...” ([36:11–37:45])

• On Michael Corleone’s control:

  “I was in the situation, as they say. And I guess it came to me, you know, because things like that happen if you stay the course.” ([27:13])

• On directorial improvisation's importance:

  “You can capture it if you’re free. If you allow the set to be free. You can capture anything on that camera as it happens...” ([38:53])

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Timestamps for Important Segments

| Timestamp | Segment | |------------|-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| | 00:24–02:36| Introduction, summary of Dog Day Afternoon, scene with Pacino and Durning | | 04:12–21:17| Sidney Lumet interview (directing, final cut, actors, method, police/legal dramas) | | 12:41–13:15| Early scene from Dog Day Afternoon—bank robbery begins | | 14:50–15:55| Lumet on Pacino’s emotional depth, shooting key scenes in one take | | 17:20–18:22| Lumet on rehearsal methods and their influence on his films | | 36:11–37:45| Pacino recalls improvising the “Attica!” scene and its spontaneous crowd reaction | | 39:47–41:29| Full Attica scene from Dog Day Afternoon | | 26:06–27:13| Pacino on embodying Michael Corleone’s power and stillness | | 28:42–28:57| Pacino on Francis Ford Coppola’s vision and their early working relationship | | 32:19–33:48| Scene from The Irishman with De Niro; Pacino discusses subtext and acting with legends| | 40:19–40:25| Pacino expresses gratitude for his career and collaboration with Terry Gross |

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Flow and Tone

The episode maintains Fresh Air’s hallmark tone—thoughtful, respectful, and filled with the generosity of both host and guests. Lumet’s practical, craftsmanlike wisdom pairs with Pacino’s warmth and candid self-deprecation to paint a picture not just of a beloved film, but of a creative era animated by experimentation, collaboration, and truth-seeking in art.

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Conclusion

This anniversary special offers a rich, multidimensional portrait of Dog Day Afternoon through the eyes of two of its principal creators. Listeners are treated to deep reflections on acting and directing, inside stories behind iconic moments, and meditations on the evolution of American film—making this episode essential for cinephiles and fans of great storytelling alike.

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Transcript

[Narrator/Host]

On the Throughline podcast from npr. Immigration enforcement might be more visible now, but this moment didn't begin with President Trump's second inauguration or even his first, A series from Throughline about how immigration.

[Al Pacino]

Became political and a cash cow.

[Narrator/Host]

Listen to Throughline in the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts.

This is FRESH air. I'm David Biancooli. Today's show is devoted to a film that was made 50 years ago, but is regarded half a century later as one of the most daring, vibrant and important movies of the 1970s. The movie 1975's Dog Day Afternoon was based on a real life Brooklyn bank robbery that had occurred three years earlier. The bank robber, who was married, was hoping to escape with enough cash to finance the sex change operation for his male lover. But mid robbery, the bank was surrounded by police, TV news crews and Brooklyn onlookers and escalated into a tense hostage situation and media circus. Al Pacino, fresh from filming Godfather 2, starred as Sonny, the bank robber. Sidney Lumet, who already had directed Pacino in the intense cop drama Serpico, was the director. Before staging and photographing the first scene, Lumet held weeks of rehearsal with the cast, encouraging them to improv. He carried that same spirit into the on location filming, and every scene crackles with energy. Here's an early scene with Pacino as Sonny inside the bank with his hostages and with the detective outside, played by Charles Durning, making first contact by phoning the bank.

This is Detective Sergeant Eugene.

[Al Pacino]

Already?

[Narrator/Host]

Yeah. Okay.

[Al Pacino]

You're in there, we're out here.

[Narrator/Host]

What do we do now? I don't know. What do we do? Listen, first off, we want to know if the people in the bank are okay. They were okay. You alone? You got confederates? I'm not alone. I got Sal. Sal? What's that for, Salvatore?

[Al Pacino]

Yeah.

[Narrator/Host]

Sal, he's a killer. We're Vietnam veterans, so killing don't mean anything to us, you understand? In the army. In the army, yeah. Okay. So does you. What's your name? Why? What do you want to know my name for? Well, give me your name, any name, just so I got something to call you. Come on, let's be reasonable, okay? This can be your name, all right? Uh, call me Sonny. Sonny, yeah.

Today on FRESH air, we feature archive interviews with both the star and director of Dog Day Afternoon, beginning with the film's director, Sidney Lumet. Sidney Lumet cut his teeth as a director in the early days of television, directing both live and filmed productions. In the early 50s, he directed episodes of the History Reenactment series, you Are There, the sitcom Mama, the Arts series, omnibus and many installments of live TV anthology drama series. One of his first of Those was the 1952 CBS Television Workshop production of Don Quixote, starring Boris Karloff and Grace Kelly. Sidney Lumet made the transition to the big screen by directing the movie version of a live TV drama, Twelve Angry Men, in 1957. But he kept alternating between film and television, doing strong work wherever he went. In 1960, his brilliant TV adaptation of Eugene Oneills the Iceman Cometh starred Jason Robards and featured a young Robert redford. In the 60s, Sidney Lumet directed a string of classic films, including the Pawnbroker and Failsafe in the 70s, after Dog Day Afternoon, his next three films were Paddy Chayefsky's Network, Equus and the Wiz. And in the 80s, he directed Christopher Reeve and Michael Caine in Death Trap and Paul Newman in the Verdict. Sidney Lumet was awarded an honorary lifetime achievement Oscar in 2005. Terry Gross spoke with Sidney Lumet in 1988.

[Terry Gross]

You've made about 38 movies in a little over 30 years. And it reminds me of the old studio days, in a way, when there were a lot of movies being made and when directors and actors used to do a lot of movies per year. How have you managed to keep that pace up, especially considering how the movie industry has changed?

[Narrator/Host]

Lucky Terry, I love work and I love movies. I think if I had. If I could ever. These things are clearly impossible. But if I could have had the artistic freedom that I enjoy now under the old studio system, which would have been impossible, by the way, I think I would have been very happy working in a studio because I love going from one project to another. I love when I work with actors who. Who I find exciting to work with. I love repeating with them and working with them again and again.

[Terry Gross]

So you think of yourself as having more artistic freedom now than you did when you were starting because of how the movie industry has changed?

[Narrator/Host]

Not partially, I don't.

[Terry Gross]

Or because of your stature.

[Narrator/Host]

Part of it is muscle. You know, you get a couple of hits behind you and you can slowly start encroaching into that area. But I think you're right. I think the studio system has changed. I don't think that Louis B. Mayer would have given me final cut. No matter how many hits I'd had, he would have never given up that prerogative.

[Terry Gross]

Now, you insist on that, right? When you take on a movie, you must have final cut. Which means what exactly?

[Narrator/Host]

Well, it Means that there can be nothing. The film cannot be touched after you finish editing it, whether in the soundtrack or visually, it's yours.

[Terry Gross]

What kind of problem had you run into with previous movies that taught you you needed to demand final cut?

[Narrator/Host]

Well, as an example, many, many years ago, I did a very, very interesting picture. I think a very good picture. It's one of the few that I like better now than at the time that I did it, a picture called the Hill with Sean Connery and was not much of a success in America, but a good picture. And at that time met. I did it for Metro Goldware and at that time they were being owned by a new person. They were changing hands almost daily. There were three new managements in the period of a year and at one point they just set it as a matter of company policy that a picture had to run 1 hour and 55 minutes because they thought that this would work well for their relationships with the exhibitors. And the picture ran two hours and two minutes and they just insisted that I take seven minutes out. They didn't care where it came from. It didn't matter to them that there were no seven minutes to take out without destroying the movie. And it was a hell of a battle. And the only reason I won it actually was because management changed hands again and the new management came in which was listened with slightly more sympathetic ears. But if the old management had continued running Metro, they simply would have taken the film and removed 7 minutes period. And that kind of thing goes on constantly. A great many directors have suffered very severely from that.

[Terry Gross]

And that's still going on?

[Narrator/Host]

Oh yeah.

[Terry Gross]

Let's talk a little bit about your first film made in 1957 and this was 12 Angry Men, a courtroom drama. You had before that been directing television, live television dramas. Was this a good transition to make since it was basically a one set movie? It's a courtroom drama, it's a jury drama. They're in the deliberation room most of the movie. Was that a good place to start?

[Narrator/Host]

It was good and it was a great problem, except that I was dumb enough not to know what the problem was. I found out after I had done the movie and people liked it, that it was very difficult to shoot a movie in one room. That never occurred to me, really. I had just plunged in with complete ignorance, knowing what I wanted to do with Cameron, knowing that I could make the camera a good interpretive part of the movie itself and just blithely went ahead, shot it in 19 days, happy as a lark. And. And didn't know what the problem was. I may have felt enormously secure at the confinement of it. Because my background, as you say, had been live television and the theater. So the idea of staging something in one room was something that came very easily to me.

[Terry Gross]

Well, the movie starred Henry Fonda and Lee J. Cobb. Fonda is the only juror initially convinced of the defendant's innocence. Cobb is the last holdout. I want to play a clip from this movie, 12 Angry Men.

[Narrator/Host]

You ever see a woman who had to wear glasses and didn't want to because she thinks they spoil her looks? Okay, she had marks on her nose. I'm giving you that. From glasses. Right. She didn't want to wear them out of the house of people who think she's gorgeous. But when she saw this kid killing his father, she was in the house alone. That's all. Do you wear glasses when you go to bed? No, I don't. No one wears eyeglasses to bed. It's logical to assume that she wasn't wearing them when she was in bed. Tossing and turning, trying to fall asleep. How do you know? I don't know. I'm guessing. I'm also guessing that she probably didn't put her glasses on when she turned and looked casually out of the window. And she herself testified the killing took place just as she looked out. The lights went off a split second later. She couldn't have had time to put them on there. Wait a second. Here's another guess. Maybe she honestly thought she saw the boy kill his father. I say she only saw a blur. How do you know what she saw? How does he know all that? How do you know what kind of glasses she wore? Maybe there were sunglasses. Maybe she was farsighted. What do you know about her? I only know the woman's eyesight is in question now. She had to be able to identify a person 60ft away at night, without glasses.

[Terry Gross]

You can't send someone off to die on evidence like that.

[Narrator/Host]

Oh, don't give me that. Don't you think the woman might have made a mistake? No, it's not possible. No, it's not possible.

[Terry Gross]

It's a heck of a cast. In addition to Fonda and Lee J. Cobb, you have Jack Warden, Jack Klugman, EG Marshall, Ed Begley. You directed them your first time out on film, and you've since directed Paul Newman and younger actors like Al Pacino and Treat Williams. Is there a difference in the acting styles of the actors who you were directing in the 50s and the actors who came of Age in, say, the seventies?

[Narrator/Host]

Not really, Terry. The basic craft of acting in the United States has been set for some years. Really, even before the Method came in, basically, people like Fonda worked out of a profound sense of truth. In fact, a man like Fonda didn't know how to do anything falsely and used himself. Used himself brilliantly. Both of those elements are foundations of the Method. And even though he wasn't called a method actor in the sense of having studied the method, he basically worked out of that as most good actors did.

[Terry Gross]

Do you think of yourself as a method director?

[Narrator/Host]

No, I become the kind of director that becomes whatever his actors need. When I did Murder on the Orient Express, I could work the way the English actors work. When we did Long Day's Journey Into Night, there was a perfect example. Kate Hepburn has a very specific way of working her own technique. Ralph Richardson is a prime example of British technique which is primarily from what we call the outside in. Dean Stockwell works completely method from the inside out. And Jason has his own glorious world of creating something from inside himself. And heaven knows where it comes from. But I think part of the job of directing is to not make the actors work your way but for you to work as a director any way that makes them comfortable.

[Terry Gross]

You directed Al Pacino in two of his first big movie roles, Serpico and Dog Day Afternoon. I want to play a short scene from Dog Day Afternoon and maybe you could tell me what you think Al Pacino needed when he was getting started. This is a scene from the very opening of the movie when. But Gina walks into a New York bank and he holds it up and he wants the money to buy a sex change operation for his lover.

[Narrator/Host]

Please. Nobody move. Get over there. Okay. All right. Get away from those alarms. Get in the center. He moves, take his head off. Put the gun on him. Get out of the second. Sonny. I can't do it, Sonny. What?

[Al Pacino]

I'm not gonna make it.

[Narrator/Host]

Sonny. What are you talking about? Put it on it. You can't do it, Sonny. Sal. Sal. What? Where are you? You can't make it.

[Terry Gross]

It's an interesting performance because Pacino is so manic in it and yet so insecure and incompetent at robbing this bank. What did he need when he was getting started? You were talking before about giving actors what you think they need.

[Narrator/Host]

Primarily, what he needed was he needed a great sense of freedom and a great sense of restriction. That the creation of the character is really Al's own. He understood something about that man that is irreplaceable And I don't think a director can ever give. He understood him down to his bone marrow. What he needed was a sense of release. The confidence to know that as extreme as he got in the performance, that it was right, that it went. For example, there's a scene toward the end of the movie where he's talking to his female wife, his real wife, on the telephone, trying to decide what to do. And the scene is extraordinary in the sense that it requires a level of emotion that I've seen very rarely in movies. We did the scene in one take because I. With two cameras. Because I didn't. Didn't want him to have to repeat that emotion over and over again. And when he finished it the first time, it was wonderful. And without waiting an instant, I didn't even cut the cameras. I said, al, go again. And he looked at me like I was crazy, because he was exhausted. He was spent. And I said, right now. Action. And what I was driving at was that he had reached such a height at the end of the first take. Such an emotional peak. But that's really where I wanted the scene to begin.

[Terry Gross]

Mm.

[Narrator/Host]

And. And he. It's one of the best pieces of movie acting I've ever seen. It was blinding in its intensity, agonizingly painful. And just reached a level of emotion that I, as I say that I don't think I've seen often in movie acting. And that knowledge that he could go as far as he wanted to within the confines of this situation. And that man, the situation created by the script, the man created by Pacino. But that confidence to know that he could go as far as his feelings would carry him was very important to him. And that was really the biggest single directing relationship to his performance.

[Terry Gross]

Here's the scene from Dog Day Afternoon that Lumet was just talking about. Al Pacino's character. Sonny is doing his best to keep it together. The bank robbery is falling apart. He has a bank full of hostages and he's dealing with the police and the hostage negotiator. In the midst of the chaos, he calls his wife.

[Narrator/Host]

I'm dying. You know that? I'm dying here, Sonny.

[Terry Gross]

I blame myself. I notice you've been tense, like something is happening. Like night before last. You're yelling at the kids like a madman.

[Narrator/Host]

And then you want me to go on that ride.

[Terry Gross]

That caterpillar from here to there, full of those kids.

[NPR Announcer]

It's ridiculous.

[Terry Gross]

I'm not about to go on the ride.

[NPR Announcer]

See? You yell at me, you pig.

[Terry Gross]

Get on the ride. Well, everything fell out of me.

[Narrator/Host]

My heart, my liver just fell to the floor. I mean, everything.

[Terry Gross]

You know what it felt like you.

[Narrator/Host]

Yelled at me like that in front of all them people. I mean.

[NPR Announcer]

Cause you never talked to me like that before. Sonny, I think he's gonna shoot me. He's gonna dump my body in the air.

[Narrator/Host]

Angie, will you just shut up?

[NPR Announcer]

I mean, I was scared of you. I was scared.

[Narrator/Host]

Will you shut the up and listen to me? Just listen to me.

[NPR Announcer]

You see?

[Al Pacino]

You see that?

[NPR Announcer]

See with the language and everything?

[Narrator/Host]

Well, I'm talk. I'm trying to talk to you.

[Terry Gross]

A person can't communicate with you. I wonder if you ever run into conflicts where there's one actor in a scene who works really well on that first or second take and another actor who sees it as their style to go for until they really get it perfect. What do you do if you run into that?

[Narrator/Host]

I have run into it. And so far, if there were a piece of wood around the studio, I'd knock on it. But so far I've been able to convince the 15 or 16 take actor that the other works, the early takes, are not imperfect. They are usually the freshest, truest. The repetition, I find, and I think for most good actors, the repetitions tend to become mechanical. One doesn't find more truth in it as it goes on. Now, that partially has to do with the way I work because, as you know, or may know, I rehearse very heavily. I rehearse two to three weeks, depending on the complexity of the characters before we begin. And those rehearsals are conducted like theater rehearsals in the sense that people learn their lines completely, are working without scripts. They're completely blocked to the degree that we're having run throughs by the end of it. So it's not as if once we get on camera, that this is their first exposure.

[Terry Gross]

Is that uncommon?

[Narrator/Host]

Yes, it is. It is. It is not done often. I think mostly those of us who were trained in television do it. I think Arthur Penn does it. I know Arthur Penn does it. John Frankenheimer and so on.

[Terry Gross]

Oh, because you had to do it for the live drama.

[Narrator/Host]

That's right. But it turned out for all of us, I think, in movies to have other advantages.

[Terry Gross]

You know, between 12 angry men, the Verdict, Serpico and Prince of the City, you've done your share of police and legal dramas. Is this a special interest of yours, or did you just like those scripts and want to do them?

[Narrator/Host]

It's funny, Terry, you know, I don't really analyze these things. I just respond instinctively to a piece of material. But obviously something in me somewhere is very involved with that level of life. Where it comes from, I don't know. But on looking back on it, boy, there are an awful lot of what I call justice stories. They somehow involve me very viscerally.

[Terry Gross]

Have you been affected by the new craze of market research?

[Narrator/Host]

Yes, and fortunately I've had my artistic controls in place before they ever came along because I think they are disastrous. I think they're destructive. I also think they're untrue. I think a person changes as soon as you ask them something.

[Terry Gross]

So do you have a no market research clause when you take on.

[Narrator/Host]

No, because I can't prevent the studio from doing it. But I sure and hell don't let it affect any of my decisions about what I'm going to do with the picture.

[Terry Gross]

You obviously love film directing. When you're doing a movie, what's the part that you most look forward to and the part that you know you have to do but you really don't enjoy at all?

[Narrator/Host]

There's only one part that I have to do. All of it is a thrilling process to me, pre production shooting, post production, editing, music. The only part that's a bit of a drag is what we call the mix, which is when we come in and do the final soundtrack and put every chair squeak in and every door slam in. It requires enormous concentration because it's largely a mechanical process rather than a creative one, although some directors use it very creatively. The soundtrack that I keep remembering particularly is the soundtrack of Apocalypse now, which was a brilliant piece of work and a totally creative piece of work. However, you do have to do it. I feel I have to do it myself because if the mix is a bad mix, if the wrong thing is emphasized, it can seriously affect the movie and be very destructive to a movie. So I have to do it. But it's the only non joyful part of movie making.

Speaking to me, Sidney Lumet speaking to Terry Gross in 1988. He died in 2011 at age 86. Coming up, we'll hear from the star of Dog Day Afternoon, Al Pacino, as we continue our look at the film, which is 50 years old this year. This is fresh air.

[NPR Announcer]

There is so much happening in politics.

[Narrator/Host]

In any given week.

[NPR Announcer]

You might need help putting it all in perspective as your week draws to a close.

[Terry Gross]

Join the end. Welcome to the NPR Politics podcast team.

[NPR Announcer]

For our weekly roundup. Here, our best political reporters zoom into the biggest stories of the week, not just what they mean but what they mean for you all in under 30 minutes. Listen to the weekly roundup every Friday.

[Terry Gross]

On the NPR Politics podcast.

[Narrator/Host]

Every year in the U.S. about 1,000.

[Terry Gross]

People die in jail, many of them awaiting trial.

[Narrator/Host]

This isn't a problem that someone else has to deal with. We all are at risk for dying in jails.

[Terry Gross]

In a special series, we'll look at why people are dying in jail and.

[Narrator/Host]

How to prevent it from happening on Here and Now Anytime, a podcast from NPR and wbur on the next through line from npr.

[NPR Announcer]

People have real ethical and moral quandaries about this. People are uncomfortable from the very beginning.

[Narrator/Host]

The business of migrant detention.

[NPR Announcer]

Listen in the NPR app or wherever.

[Terry Gross]

You get your podcasts.

[Narrator/Host]

We're continuing our golden anniversary salute to Dog Day Afternoon by hearing from Al Pacino, who starred as the bank robber Sonny that landmark 1975 film. For Pacino, it was a brilliant performance, but only one among many. The movies in which he has starred and shone brightly include the Godfather films, Scarface, Glengarry Glen Ross, Serpico, Scent of a Woman and the Devil's Advocate. For tv, he's played the title role in Phil Spector, Roy Cohn in Angels in America, and starred in the series Hunters. In 2024, he wrote a memoir called Sonny Boy, which is when Terry Gross spoke with him. She started by asking Al Pacino about the first Godfather film and played a scene which featured not only him as Michael Corleone, but John Cazale as Michael's brother Fredo. Cazale would share the screen with Pacino once more as his bank robbing accomplice in Dog Day Afternoon. Here's the scene from Godfather 1. Pacino as Michael has begun his transformation into the hardened Michael. His father is still alive, but Michael is preparing to take over for him. He's with Mo Green, a Vegas casino owner kind of modeled on Bugsy Siegel, and the Corleone family has helped back him. Also in the scene are Michael's not very bright brother Fredo and the family lawyer Tom, played by Robert Duvall. Mo Green is played by Alex Rocco. Michael speaks first.

Corleone family wants to buy you out. The Corleone family wants to buy me out? No, I buy you out. You don't buy me out. Your casino loses money. Maybe we can do better. You think I'm skimming off the top, Mike? You're unlucky. You damn guineas really make me laugh. I do you a favor and take Freddie in when you're having a bad time and then you try to push me out Wait a minute. You took Freddie in because the Corleone family bankrolled your casino because the Molinari family on the coast guaranteed his safety? Now we're talking business. Let's talk business. Yeah, let's talk business, mate. First of all, you're all done. The Coyote family don't even have that kind of muscle anymore. The Godfather is sick, right? You're getting chased out of New York by Barzini and the other families. What do you think is going on here? You think you can come to my hotel and take over? I talk to Barzini, I can make a deal with him and still keep my hotel. Is that why you slapped my brother around in public? Oh, now, that was nothing, Mike. Now, Moe didn't mean nothing by that. Sure, he flies off the handle once in a while, but Moe and me were good friends. Right, Moe?

[Terry Gross]

Huh?

[Narrator/Host]

I got a business to run. I gotta kick asses sometimes to make it run right. We had a little argument, Freddie and I. So I had to straighten him out. You straightened my brother out? He was banging cocktail waitresses two at a time. Players couldn't get a drink at the table. What's wrong with you? I leave for New York tomorrow. Think about a price. Do you know who I am? I'm Mo Green. I made my bones when you were going out with cheerleaders. Wait a minute. Mo. Moe, I get an idea.

[Al Pacino]

Tom.

[Narrator/Host]

Tom, you're the conciliary now. You can talk to the Don. You can explain. Just a minute. Don is semi retired and Mike is in charge of the family business now. Have anything to say, say it to Michael.

[Terry Gross]

I just love that scene so much.

[Al Pacino]

Yeah, it's interesting on radio too. It works, just hearing it.

[Terry Gross]

Doesn't it work, though?

[Al Pacino]

Yeah, it does. Really does. I was thinking maybe they'll do the Godfather on radio someday.

[Terry Gross]

That's a great idea.

[Al Pacino]

Yeah.

[Terry Gross]

You know, I interviewed Michael Caine years ago, and the great actor Michael Caine. And he was saying, well, when you're playing a powerful person, you don't wave your hands around. Because when you have the power, people are looking at your every subtle gesture. They're trying to read you. They're trying to stay in your good graces and stay safe. And so weak people move their hands around, powerful people don't. When we started talking, you were moving around a lot. So I'm thinking, was it hard for you to be as still as Michael is when he is exerting his power? Because he knows how to not be still when he needs to. But he can be very still. And very opaque and very threatening at the same time.

[Al Pacino]

I know. I don't know how I did that.

[Terry Gross]

Yeah, I was wondering.

[Al Pacino]

I don't know till this day what possessed me.

[Terry Gross]

You literally, like, don't blink in that scene. I think you blinked once. How do you do that?

[Al Pacino]

Well, I was in the situation, as they say. And I guess it came to me, you know, because things like that happen if you stay the course. Meaning if you are with whoever you are when you're playing it and your instincts are operating. I guess I was lucky and I just went in that direction and I didn't do it consciously.

[Terry Gross]

You were nearly fired from the movie after the opening scene. And you write in the book that the opening scene was such a stupid scene for the audition. Because Michael is so, like, not a part of the family. He doesn't really know who he is yet. His future is uncharted and he's naive.

[Al Pacino]

So, yeah, judgment was off on picking that scene, I think, because it's a scene of, you know, quasi exposition. So when you're going through it, what are you supposed to do?

[Terry Gross]

He's just describing to his girlfriend, Kay, who later becomes his wife. Like, who's here and who his family is and who they've helped kill.

[Al Pacino]

And I know all these wonderful people auditioned. I remember them all, all of us young actors just doing that scene. And I thought, well, what can they see from that? You know? But somehow I was the lucky one. And because Francis always wanted me before there was a script.

[Terry Gross]

Francis Ford Coppola. Yeah.

[Narrator/Host]

Yeah.

[Al Pacino]

He always wanted me to play Michael. That was in his vision, even though it wasn't in mine. I'll tell you that. I thought he might be making a mistake.

[Terry Gross]

I thought you thought he was kidding and it was maybe a phony phone call.

[Al Pacino]

Well, I did think when he called me and told me that he was given the Godfather to direct because I knew him like a year ago before that, where I went out to San Francisco to do something with him. And I saw where he worked and the Zoetrope with Spielberg there and Lucas and all those De Palma and all those 70s filmmakers that were about to explode on the scene. And I had met them in San Francisco, and he was getting to know me for another role he was doing in a movie that he wrote, Love Story, which never got off the ground. And I went back to New York, and I hadn't heard from him in about a year. And then he called me, and I said, oh, Francis. I spent some time with him three or four days. So I Got to know him a little bit. And I thought, this guy's got something very special. And he called me and told me he had the Godfather. I thought, now he's gone too far. I thought, what life can do to you, you know, now he's fantasizing things. So I said, okay. I went along with it. But after a while, I started to think, wait a minute. I think Paramount is pretty smart to pick this guy because this guy knows his stuff, and it's an Italian American. He understands it somewhere. They picked him. You know, he had won an Oscar already for the script of Patton, the George C. Scott film that was so wonderful. And so he already was starting to establish himself in Hollywood. And then I started to think, maybe he is gonna do it. But when he said he wanted me to play Michael, then I thought, he's really in a fantasy.

[Terry Gross]

So you start with Robert De niro in Godfather 2, but you're not in any scenes together because he's of a different generation from before you were born. However, you do have scenes together in Heat and also in the Irishman. And I want to play a great scene from the Irishman.

[Al Pacino]

Sure.

[Terry Gross]

Okay, so here's a scene with you and De Niro toward the end of the film, and you've just gotten out of prison. He plays Frank Sheeran. And Frank Sheeran is somebody who got very connected to the mob. And then he became. You played Jimmy Hoffa, the head of the Teamsters Union. He became your bodyguard. So in this scene, you've only recently gotten out of prison. There was a big kind of ceremony in your honor. And then De Niro as Frank Sheeran comes up to you and explains that basically that your time's up, that the mob wants you out of the Teamsters, out of the leadership position that you want to return to. But you're both talking between the lines. You're not coming right out and saying anything. You're talking between the lines. It's a great scene. You ping pong back and forth. So let's hear it. It starts with De Niro.

[Al Pacino]

Tony told the old man to tell.

[Narrator/Host]

Me to tell you.

[Al Pacino]

It's what it is. What it is. It's what it is.

[Narrator/Host]

Please listen to me.

[Al Pacino]

They wouldn't dare. They wouldn't dare. Please, Frank, come on.

[NPR Announcer]

Don't say they wouldn't dare.

[Narrator/Host]

No, don't.

[Al Pacino]

Don't tell me that, Kenneth. That. That's. That's fairy tale.

[Narrator/Host]

Don't say they wouldn't dare. Please.

[Al Pacino]

Something funny happens to me, they're done. You understand? It and they know it because I got files, I got proof, I got records, I got tapes. Anytime I want, they'll be gone. These spend the rest of their lives in jail. And they know it. They know it. What you're saying is what they're concerned about. What I'm saying is I know things. I know things they don't know I know. Please, I'm just a chance. What chance am I? Why should I be taking a chance?

[NPR Announcer]

This is it.

[Al Pacino]

They're saying this is it, and then it's it. I'm trying to tell you something. I know you are. You're telling me they're threatening me and I got to do what they say, which is. But it's more absolute. It's the bottom line. Bottom line. It's. It's what it is. They do something to me, I do something to them. That's all I know. I don't know anything else. Do you?

[Terry Gross]

You don't get that De Niro's telling you they're gonna kill you unless you do it.

[Al Pacino]

Yeah.

[Terry Gross]

And they do.

[Narrator/Host]

Al Pacino speaking to Terry Gross in 2024. We'll continue their conversation after a break. This is FRESH air.

[Terry Gross]

A lot of short daily news podcasts.

[NPR Announcer]

Focus on just one story, but right.

[Terry Gross]

Now you probably need more on.

[Narrator/Host]

Up first from NPR, we bring you three of the world's top headlines every.

[NPR Announcer]

Day in under 15 minutes.

[Terry Gross]

Because no one's story can capture all.

[Narrator/Host]

That'S happening in this big crazy world of ours on any given morning. Listen now to the upfirst podcast from npr.

[Terry Gross]

Shortwave thinks of science as an invisible force showing up in your everyday life.

[Narrator/Host]

Powering the food you eat, the medicine you use, the tech in your pocket.

[Terry Gross]

Science is approachable because it's already part of your life. Come explore these connections on the Short Wave podcast from npr. I'm Rachel Martin. If you're tired of small talk, check out the Wildcard podcast. I invite your favorite celebrities to open.

[Narrator/Host]

Up about the big topics we all.

[Terry Gross]

Think about, but rarely talk about. Tune in this fall to hear Matthew.

[Narrator/Host]

McConaughey, Shonda Rhimes and Padma Lakshmi talk.

[NPR Announcer]

About everything from grief and God to ambition and forgiveness.

[Narrator/Host]

Watch or listen on the NPR app.

[Terry Gross]

YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. I just want to end with one more scene, and it's another very famous scene. This is from Dog Day Afternoon, and it's the Attica scene. So you've been holding up a bank. You've been trying to rob a bank to get money for for your lover's gender Affirmation surgery. Your lover is transgender, a transgender woman, and wants the surgery. Everything has gone wrong with the bank robbery. So now you're holding everybody in the bank hostage, and you step outside to make your demands, and the sergeant who's overseeing it wants you to just, you know, make a deal with him and end this siege. So the sergeant is played by Charles Durning. And in this scene, you get everybody chanting Attica. And that chant was an idea that was given to you at the last minute.

[Al Pacino]

I forget by who as I was going out, this great assistant director, Bert Harris. Brilliant. He's done it all. And he and I made films together because he was Lumet's ad. Very clever. He used to. When I'd come in in the morning, he'd do all the things that, you know, break a hangover to get me ready to play Serpico. You had all these bidders and stuff. He understood things. He really worked with so many actors. And anyway, on my way out to once again confront the crowd and the police and everything going on out there, as I was going out, he said to me, listen, Al, come here. Say Attica. I said, what? Say Attica.

[Narrator/Host]

Go.

[Al Pacino]

I said, say Attica. So I go out, and I don't know. I know about Attica because it was in the news. It was terrible situation that had happened in Attica prison and all that. So I'm thinking, it's in my head, and I'm going on with the cops. All of a sudden, they just blurted out. I say, attica. Remember Attica. You know? Oh, that just got the crowd, man. They just went with it, and they start going. And the next thing you know, everybody says. And the cops were all there, and they would say, what the hell is this? What are we doing here? What happened?

[Terry Gross]

Yeah. And of course, Attica went wild. Attica referred to in this prison in New York, upstate New York, where they.

[Al Pacino]

Went in there and killed prisoners.

[Terry Gross]

Yeah, the prisoners were demanding more humane conditions in the prison, and they took some of the workers there hostage. And then the police moved in armed. There was a riot. A lot of people got shot, mostly shot by police. People died. It was just. It was a disaster. And so he starts. So your character starts shouting, attica. And there's a whole crowd of people watching the whole spectacle. And I don't mean watching the movie being made. I mean watching the spectacle of the drama of the hostage crisis in the movie. There's police all around, dozens of police. There's snipers on the rooftop. And you come out of the bank and start talking, and the sergeant's trying to make a deal with you. And so when we hear the crowd chanting Attica. In response to you chanting Attica. Did they know you were going to do that?

[Al Pacino]

No, they didn't.

[Terry Gross]

And we wanted that. Go ahead, go ahead.

[Al Pacino]

That's what is so wonderful about films. You can capture it if you're free. If you allow the set to be free. You can capture anything on that camera as it happens within the. Within this. The structure, the context of the film you're doing and the scene you're playing. You never know what can happen. And it was. You know, it happened.

[Terry Gross]

And is that the take that you used?

[Al Pacino]

I don't know. I don't know. Dee Dee Allen was cutting it, I would imagine it was. I mean, it's. They started doing it again when I went out for other takes. I guess it started a trend outside. I mean, there were hundreds of people who understood what I was saying. They were all part of the. You know, they're part of what New York was going through at the time.

[Terry Gross]

I'll just say one more thing about this scene. It is the opposite of Michael Corleone in the Godfather. He's so, like, still and powerful and cold. And you play this as somebody who's, like, really agitated. You're pacing back and forth. You have a handkerchief in your hand. Handkerchief in your hand. They keep. Like you're waving it back and forth. You're just like one ball of impulsive, nervous energy. And so let's hear the scene. And before we play it, I just want to thank you so much for talking with us.

[Al Pacino]

Oh, it's been a pleasure.

[Terry Gross]

Thank you for all your great films, all your great performances, and for the book.

[Al Pacino]

Thank you very much. Thank you.

[Narrator/Host]

Come on. Quit while you're ahead. All you got is attempted robbery, armed robbery.

[Al Pacino]

All right, arm, then.

[Narrator/Host]

Nobody's been hurt. Release the hostages. Nobody's gonna worry over kidnapping charges. The most you're gonna get is five years. You get out in one year. Huh? Kiss me, man. What? Kiss me. When I'm being. I like to get kissed a lot. Come on, come on, come on. You're a city cop, right? Robbing the bank's a federal offense. They got me on kidnapping. Kidnapping, armed robbery. They're gonna bury me, man. I don't want to talk to somebody who's trying to calm me. Get somebody in charge here. I am in charge.

[Al Pacino]

I don't want to talk to some.

[Narrator/Host]

Flunky pig trying to calm me. You don't have to be calling. What's he doing?

[Al Pacino]

What do you get back there for?

[Narrator/Host]

What's he doing back there? Get back there. Get over there.

[Al Pacino]

Go back there, man.

[Narrator/Host]

Get over there. He wants to kill me so bad he can taste it. I got always gonna kill Attica.

That was Al Pacino inciting the crowd in the most memorable scene from the 1975 film Dog Day Afternoon, which is now 50 years old. Al Pacino, who spoke to Terry last year, is now 85 years old. After a break, Maureen Corrigan reviews the new novel the Loneliness of Sonya and Sunny by Kiran Desai, which has just been shortlisted for the Booker Prize. This is FRESH air.

[Terry Gross]

Here at Life Kit, we take advice seriously. We bring you evidence based recommendations. And to do that, we talk with researchers and experts on all sorts of topics because we have the same questions you do, like what's really in my shampoo? Or should I let my kid quit soccer? Or what should I do with my savings in uncertain economic times? You can listen to NPR's Life Kit in the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Narrator/Host]

Hello, can you hear me?

[NPR Announcer]

If you can, it means you and I were left behind. The Christian rapture was predicted to happen this past week.

[Narrator/Host]

It didn't. But that doesn't change the fact that.

A lot of you all feel like.

[NPR Announcer]

We'Re living in the end times.

[Narrator/Host]

And on It's Been a Minute.

[NPR Announcer]

I'm getting into what, regardless of religion.

[Terry Gross]

You'Re doing with that feeling.

[NPR Announcer]

Listen to It's Been a Minute on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Narrator/Host]

The 2006 novel by Kiran Desai, the Inheritance of Loss, won both the Booker Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award. Her new novel, the Loneliness of Sonja and Sonny, has just been shortlisted for the Booker Prize. Our book critic Maureen Corrigan has a review.

[NPR Announcer]

It took Kieran Desai nearly 20 years to write her new novel, the Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny. I mean this as a sincere tribute when I say I'm amazed it only took her that long. Desai's near 700 page novel is about exile and displacement not only from one's home, country, family and culture, but also from one's own sense of self. The multi character, multi stranded plot roams from locales in India and the U.S. delhi, Goa, Vermont, Brooklyn, with side trips to Italy and Mexico. This is a novel of ideas as well as, at its most elemental, a tangled love story. Desai's characters inhabit a complex, postmodern, post colonial world and yet her own sensibility as a novelist is playfully old fashioned. Consider the contrivance Desai brazenly concocts to enable a central moment of this story, a chance meeting on an overnight train between the two title characters after they've each rejected their own family's formal attempts to arrange a marriage between them. Dickens himself might have blushed. There are plenty of complications, however, before and after that fateful moment. When the novel opens in the late 1990s, Sonia is a depressed college student in Vermont who hasn't been back to India in two years. Her grandparents, her lifeline back home, are baffled. Here's a sampling of a phone conversation a tearful Sonia has with her grandfather. What are you crying for, you lucky girl? Sonia tried to explain. I've ballooned in my own head. I cannot stop thinking about myself and my problems. I'm dreading the winter in the dark and cold. It will get worse. Do some jumping jacks, get your spirits up, and then pick up your books. The miscommunication there is generational, cultural and temperamental. Tragically, it makes the isolated Sonia ripe for the picking by a visiting art monster, a painter named Ilan. Early in their affair, Ilan boasts to the impressionable Sonja, maybe I will paint a picture that the whole world will know and you'll become angry and feel you don't exist outside the painting. And he does just that, appropriating her body and an intimate moment of shame in his art for all to see. Just as damaging is Ilan's theft of a treasured amulet that Sonia inherited from her German grandfather. Without that amulet depicting a demon protector, Sonia feels bereft. But what of Sunny, our other protagonist here? He too has left India for the US where we first meet him. Working for the Associated Press. A prime motivation for Sonny's move was his domineering mother, Babita, we're told. Sunny had thought he would be able to love her better from New York. Instead, Sonny finds himself editing his life for his mother, for instance, hiding the existence of his live in girlfriend, a Nordic Midwesterner named Ula. In one of the many black comedy set pieces in this novel, Oola takes Sunny home to Kansas to meet her folks. Here are some snippets from that visit, mostly seen from Oola's anxious perspective. Oola didn't want Sunny to find her father's Consumer Reports in the basket by his reclining chair. She didn't want her father to tell Sunny he'd found an excellent deal on his own tombstone. Ula had told Sunny he was not to say anything complimentary about socialism or Jimmy Carter or even Bill Clinton. Oola, vigilant to both sides, saw that Sonny was not able to perform to his eccentric self, that her parents body humor was oppressed. They passed the beans and the cornbread. The tick tock asserted itself while her mother wondered whether if it was safe to say she she had enjoyed the movie Gandhi. Maybe enjoyed was not the word. What hope is there for us to understand each other, let alone ourselves, when so much of human interaction is performance? Sonia, a writer, considers that question as it applies to art, recognizing the danger of packaging and an exotic India in her writing for the enticement of white people. Would the dilemma vanish? Sonya wonders if the abundance of stories grew as abundant as life itself. In the Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny, Desai has come close to achieving that ideal. This is a spectacular novel, nearly as abundant as life itself to savor, ruminate over and, yes, even reread.

[Narrator/Host]

Maureen Corrigan is a professor of literature at Georgetown University. She reviewed the Loneliness of Sonia and Sonny by Kiran Desai. On Monday's show, US Poet Laureate Ada Limon discusses New and Selected Poems, a collection spanning nearly two decades. Limon's poetry documents everything from close observations of horses and kingfishers to the cosmos. One of her poems is engraved on NASA's Europa Clipper, bound for Jupiter's moon. I hope you can join us. Fresh air's executive producer is Danny Miller. Sam Brigger is our managing producer. Our senior producer today is Roberta Shorrock. Our technical director and engineer is Audrey Bentham, with additional engineering support by Joyce Lieberman, Julian Hertzfeld and Deanna Martinez. Our interviews and reviews are produced and edited by Phyllis Myers, Ann Marie Baldonado, Lauren Krenzel, Teresa Madden, Monique Nazareth, Thea Chaloner, Susan Yakundi and Anna Bauman. Our digital media producer is Molly Seavey Nesper Hope Wilson is our consulting visual producer for Terry Gross and Tonya Moseley. I'm David Biancooli.

At All Latino, we celebrate Latin music all year round.

[NPR Announcer]

But during Latin Music Month, we really.

[Terry Gross]

Amp it up once again. We're turning the tiny desk into El Tiny and bringing you 11 hot off the desk performances.

[Narrator/Host]

Hear musical giants like Gloria Estefan in a more intimate setting and get to know newer artists like Macario Martinez. Celebrate Latinidad with us all month long on the Alt Latino podcast from npr.

[Terry Gross]

There are a lot of books out.

[Narrator/Host]

There, big ones, small ones, smart ones, silly ones, ones that thrill, and ones that are, well, kind of a bore. But NPR's book of the Day podcast is here to help you find your.

[Terry Gross]

Favorites through our author interviews, you can find out if a book is right.

[Narrator/Host]

For you in 15 minutes or less. So listen to NPR's Book of the.

Day podcast in the NPR app or.

Wherever you get your podcasts on Fridays. The 1A podcast is all about helping you cut through the info fog and get to what's important. Important in the news. Close out the week with us on our Friday News Roundup. Hear from reporters who've been embedded with the biggest news of the week. Join us every week for the Friday News Roundup. Listen to the One A podcast from NPR and WAMU.