Al Pacino Receives SAG-AFTRA Life Achievement Award

Al Pacino, the nine-time Oscar-nominated star of iconic films such as The Godfather and its sequels, Dog Day Afternoon, Scarface, and the Best Actor Oscar winner for Scent of a Woman, will receive the 62nd SAG-AFTRA Life Achievement Award. The honor, presented annually by the actors' union for career achievement and humanitarian work, […]

Al Pacino, the nine-time Academy Award-nominated star of iconic films such as The Godfather and its sequels, Dog Afternoon, Scarface and the Academy Award winner for Best Actor in Scent of a Woman, will receive the 62nd SAG-AFTRA Lifetime Achievement Award.

The honor, presented annually by the Screen Actors Guild for career and philanthropic achievements, will be presented at the 2027 SAG-AFTRA Actor of the Year Awards on February 28 at the Shrine Auditorium & Expo Hall in Los Angeles. The union announced on Thursday.

Pacino's career spans seven decades, and his major film debut was 1971's Terror in Needle Park. His breakthrough came when Francis Coppola cast him as Michael Corleone in The Godfather, earning him his first Oscar nomination (for Best Supporting Actor) for the character he would reprise in two sequels. This leading role led to films such as Serpico, Dog Day Afternoon and Scarface in 1983, starring Cuban gangster Tony Montana.

His other film credits during that period include The Sea of Love and Dick Tracy, and then in 1992 he became the first male actor to receive two acting Oscar nominations for two films in the same year for Glengarry Glenn Ross and Scent of a Woman. The latter, in which he played the blind Colonel Frank Slade on the brink, won him his Oscar. Watch on Deadline

Other blockbusters for Pacino in the 1990s include Frankie and Johnny, Carlito's Way, The Heat, Looking for Richard, The Devil's Advocate, Donnie Brasco, The Insider, and Every Sunday.

Television credits include playing Roy Cohen in the 2003 HBO adaptation of Tony Kushner's Pulitzer Prize-winning play Angels in America, for which he won an Emmy, a Golden Globe, and a SAG Award. He won another Emmy for his portrayal of Dr. Jack Korkian in HBO's You Don't Know Jack. Also for HBO, Penn State football coach Joe Paterno was portrayed in Paterno and Phil Spector in Phil Spector.

More recently, films include Quentin Tarantino's Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, Martin Scorsese's The Irishman and Ridley Scott's House of Gucci, and he played a Nazi hunter for two seasons on Prime Video's The Hunters.

Her philanthropic efforts and community causes included participating in the 2001 TV America: Tribute to Heroes show, which supported the families of 9/11. The ONE Campaign's 2005 initiative, Make Poverty History, addressed extreme poverty, hunger and AIDS. and a 2012 Hurricane Sandy relief campaign. She supports the Los Angeles Shakespeare Center and in 2009 received the Arthritis Foundation Southern California Jane Wyman Philanthropy Award.

Sean Austin, president of SAG-AFTRA, announced the award, which was recently given to Harrison Ford last year, ahead of Jane Fonda (2024), Barbra Streisand (2020), Mirren (2020), and SAG-AFTRA (2020). (2020) and Mirren (2020) and SAG-AFTRA President Sean Austin said in announcing the award: “Like many actors, I have spent my life in awe and appreciation of the force of nature that is Al Pacino. Robert De Niro (2020) starring Pacino Godfather II. "When you watch him perform, you witness a student and a master. Al Pacino is an artist of extraordinary courage, intensity and heart whose work has always set exceptional standards of skill and talent. All this and he is simply fun to watch. SAG-AFTRA is proud to celebrate Al Pacino with our union's highest honor.

Pacino will add SAG-AFRTA's highest honor to a list of honors that include two Tony Awards (Best Actor for Does a Tiger Wear a Tie? in his 1969 Broadway debut and Best Actor for Paolo Homelci's Basic Training in 1977), AFI's Gevemoment Award, the Golden Ceevelo Life. DeMille Award and Kennedy Center Honor.

"I've wondered and wandered most of my life, but I've always felt at ease with the script and the other actors," Pacino says. "This work and the actors along the way have been one of the greatest joys of my life. It is an honor to be recognized by SAG-AFTRA in celebrating this journey."

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