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Al Pacino knew how to own a screen long before awards and applause followed his name. He stood tall among the greats when the 1970s hit full stride. His transformation into Michael Corleone in The Godfather series redefined what Hollywood expected from its stars. With Dog Day Afternoon, he proved once again he could carry complicated, messy characters with raw honesty.
However, somewhere along that rise, something rare happened to Pacino. A role came his way that seemed to fit everything he did best, and yet he let it go. While Pacino was busy climbing the Hollywood ladder, director Terrence Malick was crafting his own path. He made something unique with Badlands, and he wasn’t slowing down. His next film, Days of Heaven, was shaping into a haunting story of desire set against the backdrop of golden wheat fields and distant skies.
The lead role eventually went to Richard Gere, who played Bill, a drifter pushing his lover Abby into marrying their wealthy employer to gain his inheritance. But before Gere’s name was on the poster, there was a moment when Pacino could’ve taken that part. He was one of the first choices right after the buzz from Dog Day Afternoon, but he passed.
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Good morning and happy birthday, Richard Gere! 💛 Here he is in DAYS OF HEAVEN (1978), Terrence Malick’s incandescent turn-of-the-century American idyll. 🌾🌾🌾 pic.twitter.com/i3x6WtqDpJ
— Criterion Collection (@Criterion) August 31, 2024
Instead of heading to Malick’s film, Pacino chose And Justice for All, a courtroom drama filled with tension of a different kind. He admitted years later that walking away from Days of Heaven was a misstep. “Yeah, a long time ago Terry wanted me to be in a movie, and I always wished… There’s another one of my many mistakes. They’re in the museum of mistakes! All the scripts I rejected,” he told The Times.
Bill’s role had all the traits Pacino could elevate. It was the kind of slow-burn character where silence says more than shouting ever could. Gere gave the part a quiet charm, but imagining Pacino’s version paints a very different picture. The restlessness in his eye and the deliberate way he handled tension could have turned the film into something more intense.
Malick’s visual poetry and Al Pacino’s energy might’ve created something raw and unforgettable, but the actor didn’t carry regret like a burden. “I feel that I’ve made what I would call mistakes. I picked the wrong movie, or I didn’t pursue a character, or I played somebody and made some choices… But everything you do is a part of you. And you get something from it,“ he said. Pacino later admired the film, praised its beauty, and respected what the team created.
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