The real trick to method acting, Al Pacino has come to learn, is to keep changing your method.
The Oscar-winning actor was given every opportunity to meet with Dr. Jack Kevorkian before playing him in the HBO biopic You Don't Know Jack (tonight at 9 on HBO Canada). Pacino politely but firmly declined. "I didn't meet Jack," admitted the actor during the recent TV critics tour in Los Angeles. "Sometimes, for some reason, I don't take access, and sometimes I do … I just felt this instinctively."
You Don't Know Jack is another variation on the acting theme for Pacino, who long ago secured the status of Hollywood icon for his portrayal of Michael Corleone in the three Godfather movies, and who earned his best-actor Oscar for playing a boisterous blind man in Scent of a Woman. Forty-odd years in the movie business have taught Pacino to trust his instincts.
"In my experience, you simply do what feels right with each role," he said. "With Frank Serpico, I studied and went with him everywhere; I got to know him. With Dog Day Afternoon, I didn't feel like I wanted to know that guy for my interpretation.
"Now, I may have made a mistake. I don't know."
For You Don't Know Jack, Pacino limited his research to an extended phone call with Kevorkian and watching TV interviews with the soft-spoken Michigan pathologist - dubbed Dr. Death by many in the media during the 1990s, when the United States was particularly polarized by the euthanasia debate.
"One of the greatest blessings for an actor, any actor, is the chance to play someone who takes their personal convictions to an extreme level," said Pacino, who turns 70 tomorrow. "This is a portrait of a zealot that we don't see often."
On his own initiative, the real Kevorkian invented two devices, which he called the Thanatron and the Mercitron. The first pumped lethal drugs into a terminally ill patient; the second administered carbon monoxide. Kevorkian performed his first assisted suicide in 1990, and then just kept on going as the public debate around him steadily grew. Over a 10-year period, Kevorkian assisted 130 people to end their lives.
"No one could ever say that Jack wasn't deeply committed to his cause," said You Don't Know Jack screenwriter Adam Mazer. "He had no wife, no family, no children, yet he took on what he believed to be this immense responsibility, and with very little public support. Everybody knew his name in the early nineties, and not for a pleasant reason. Everyone knew him as the suicide doctor." Johnny Carson made him the punchline of cheap jokes on The Tonight Show.
After several trials and acquittals, Kevorkian was eventually convicted of second-degree murder in 1999, following his decision to allow a video of one patient's demise to be broadcast on 60 Minutes. He was released from prison in 2007 after serving 8 1/2 years.
Directed by Barry Levinson, an Oscar-winner for Rain Man, the HBO film portrait is told largely from Kevorkian's perspective and covers the period from his first assisted suicide to the start of his prison term. As he has done in past roles, Pacino disappears into the character. Gaunt and bespectacled, he delivers a cagily restrained performance. He has Kevorkian's Midwestern twang down cold, and at times, like the man himself, he appears bemused by the public furor he has stirred with the right-to-die debate.
Also like the real Kevorkian, he comes across as both a humanitarian and a provocateur. In one jolting scene, when a Christian picket screams at Kevorkian outside a courtroom, the rumpled medic's response is immediate: "My God is Johann Sebastian Bach. At least he's not imaginary like yours."
Pacino's work in the film is complemented by a solid ensemble cast. John Goodman, currently starring on HBO's Treme, is doggedly loyal as medical technician Neal Nicol, seemingly Kevorkian's only real friend. Brenda Vaccaro plays the doctor's strong-willed sister Margo. Susan Sarandon brings fire to her portrayal of Janet Good, an activist with the pro-euthanasia group that came to be known as the Hemlock Society.
"The story and the issues raised in this story are as timely now as they were 20 years ago," said Sarandon, during the critics tour. "It raises questions that are still very relevant today, particularly as the current generation of baby boomers are forced to deal with their own health problems and their inevitable death."
Kevorkian, now 81, has kept a remarkably low profile since his release from prison. And Pacino never did meet the man until the film's debut in New York two weeks ago. ("I thought it was superb," Kevorkian told reporters after the premiere.) In the end, Pacino's compelling, self-driven performance seems right on the mark.
"I don't think a lot of people can say they really know Jack," said Pacino. "When you see the image portrayed of him during his time, you get a sense of someone quite different than the personality I got to know. The movie's title is apt, because you still don't know this guy."