Al Pacino's Take on a Misguided Dog Day Scene

Al Pacino is known for his strong stance on preserving the authenticity of his characters, even if it means clashing with his director. In his recent memoir, Sonny Boy, he discusses his overall positive experience filming Dog Day Afternoon in 1975, but he mentions one aspect that troubled him.

Pacino recalls a scene in the original script where Sonny's lover, Leon (played by Chris Sarandon), arrives at the bank dressed as Marilyn Monroe during a hostage situation, and they kiss outside. He found this portrayal ridiculous, asserting, "This didn’t happen that way." He speculated that the filmmakers aimed to heighten the drama, but he saw it as unnecessary exaggeration.

The film centers on a botched bank robbery, revealing that Pacino’s character, Sonny Wortzik, is driven by the need to fund Leon's gender affirmation surgery. It’s based on the real-life events of John Wojtowicz, who attempted a similar robbery in Brooklyn in 1972 to pay for his partner Eden's operation.

Pacino was concerned about how director Sidney Lumet and screenwriter Frank Pierson altered the true story of John and Eden, viewing it as a comedic twist that trivialized the seriousness of the events. He had a significant disagreement with Lumet, Pierson, and his manager, expressing, "We are dealing with human beings, whether heterosexual or homosexual. We're just human beings." He questioned whether such a display would have been allowed by the police in real life.

He further clarified that while the film allowed Sonny and Leon to have a farewell phone call, the reality was much more restrained. "They didn’t kiss or even touch; no one was dressed as Marilyn Monroe," he emphasized.

Pacino noted that he and Sarandon had already rehearsed their lines extensively, leading Lumet to let them improvise during the phone call scene, which was later refined into the script. He referred to this collaborative process as "Lumet magic," but credited his own integrity as well.

He described his character’s sexuality as "complex," stating that Sonny is a family man who is also involved with someone who today would be recognized as transgender. Pacino explained that this complexity did not make the role more appealing or daunting for him.

Having grown up in the South Bronx and lived in New York City's East Village, Pacino had a diverse circle of friends and colleagues, which made different sexual orientations feel normal rather than rebellious.

Throughout his career, he has taken on various potentially controversial queer roles, including the ambiguous undercover cop Steve Burns in Cruising and the closeted conservative Roy Cohn in Angels in America. He reflected that having a gay or queer main character in Dog Day Afternoon was indeed rare for Hollywood at the time, but he emphasized that such factors did not influence his acting choices. For Pacino, it’s about being "an actor portraying a character," focusing on bringing depth and humanity to the role.