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*HBO released the first teaser trailer for their “Paterno” movie starring Al Pacino, and it shows shots of the Academy and Emmy award-winning actor as former Penn State football coach Joe Paterno and features a voiceover of someone asking, “Dad, did you know about Jerry?”
Paterno was fired after coaching at Penn State for 46 seasons following Jerry Sandusky’s 2011 arrest for sexual abuse of children.
HBO’s official description of the movie reads: “After becoming the winningest coach in college football history, Paterno’s legacy is challenged and he is forced to face questions of institutional failure. Academy Award and Emmy Award winner Al Pacino returns to HBO in the title role, as Penn State’s Joe Paterno in the aftermath of the Jerry Sandusky sexual abuse scandal.”
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(Source: Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images North America)
Paterno was scrutinized and questioned as to what he did or did not know about Sandusky and “Paterno” follows these events over a two-week period. The film also marks director Barry Levinson second collaboration with Pacino for HBO Films.
“I know a lot of the real-life characters I played, I did with HBO,” Pacino said during the TCA winter press tour on Jan. 11.
“There’s Roy Cohn, in “Angels in America,” Tony Kushner’s great masterpiece. And then there’s Jack Kevorkian, and then there’s Phil Spector, and now there’s Paterno,” he states, noting that “there’s a certain credibility because these things really happen, and it gives you, as an actor, you feel kind of credible in that this really took place. It fortifies you in a way. More than anything, you have the real person to digest, to sort of channel. I think that’s very important. It’s important to channel these people, and that takes a while. But at the same time, there’s always footage on them. There are so many interviews on them,” Pacino explains of his process on connecting with and occupying the headspace of the real-life characters he plays onscreen.
“And it’s the best when you’ve got the real guy. Like, when I did Serpico, I had the real friend of Serpico, and interplaying with him. And getting stories, fresh, uninhibited, from his own experience, was the most delightful, and the most enjoyable for me,” he continues.
“And now, with “Paterno,” it’s about going on this trip and learning as you go, and I’m still learning about this character, believe it or not. I don’t know anything about Joe Paterno. I don’t really know a lot about him. I know about the character I play in the movie, and that character was as close to a servant as I’ve ever played.”
“Paterno” director Barry Levinson previously said: “Joe Paterno was known as an honorable man, an educator, a humanitarian — so trying to make sense out of what happened is, for me, the most fascinating aspect of the story,” he said. “What did he understand? What did he not understand?”
“The film lays out the elements of the story and leaves you to make your own judgment,” he added. “There are times when you may feel one way, and times when you may feel a totally different way, and I think that’s what makes the piece so compelling.”
Almost immediately after Sandusky’s arrest on Nov. 5, 2011, questions swirled about what Paterno knew and when.
“I found out as I went along, playing the character, how I thought he might have felt about it and how he might have dealt with it,” Pacino says during the TCA panel. “I try to be careful because there are people out there who have a different opinion about it, the people who are closer to him. So I took my cue from what it was like living through that role, and that cue was interestingly enough, I think he was certainly in a depressed state. In the movie, we find him in that.”
“Paterno” does not yet have an official release date, but HBO says it will premiere this spring.
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