fly fish, FLY

Miles Teves's portrait of Al Pacino as the vampire Lestat. The actor was briefly considered for the role.

Miles Teves concentrated on concepts for Lestat, a crucial role that remained uncast for a long time. A seemingly endless series of names was thrown into the hat as possible contenders, only to be rejected. “The craziest one was Al Pacino,” Shane Mahan said. “I remember Neil Jordan coming into the shop one day and asking, ‘What do you boys think of Al Pacino?’ And we said, ‘For what?’ ‘For Lestat.’ We couldn’t believe it. He was too old for the part, for one thing. In the book, Lestat was a twenty-four-year-old French guy! But, apparently, Al Pacino really wanted to do it, and so we did drawings of Al Pacino as Lestat.”

“Every week, we’d get a new name,” said McCreery, “and Miles and I would go back and do another drawing of Lestat, sketching it over that new actor’s face. One week, it was Jeremy Irons. The next week, it was Daniel Day-Lewis. The next week, it was Val Kilmer. Finally, it was announced that Tom Cruise was going to be Lestat — and everyone at the studio really got behind that idea.” (x)

Photography by Andy Gotts (2008)

I shot Al in his Beverly Hills home. When you see lists of the greatest actors, Al Pacino is always in the top two, normally alternating with De Niro, so when I was driving to his house I was expecting this Hollywood mega-god in a lavish palace, drinking Bailey's out of a shoe. I had visions of a mix of Michael Corleone, a hint of Tony Montana and a dash of his Oscar winning Frank Slade. So when I trundle up to his modest house I was pleasantly surprised. I was even more taken aback when I discovered this 69 year old guy had [twins] that [were] 8 years old...good lad! The shoot with Al was amazing, but the most bizarre thing happened...Al Pacino did an impression of Robert De Niro, the 'you looking at me?' routine. It's going to take a lot to top that! (x)

Gotta love this quirky little shot of iconic actor Al Pacino doing a little improv of #Salvador Dali. Quite a huge part of photography is luck (despite what us photographers will have you believe!). We cannot plan exactly what will happen at a photo shoot, nor predict the mood or high jinx of the subjects being shot. When I was heading to Pacino’s house in Beverly Hills did I expect Al to be all jovial and want to be silly? Of course not!! I was expecting the ‘Godfather ‘ wanting to make me an offer I couldn’t refuse rather than a Kenneth Williams impression, which Michael Sheen would have been proud of! (x)