Al Pacino didn’t get paid “big bucks” to appear in the Oscar-winning ‘Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood’.
The ‘Heat’ actor, who is now worth an estimated $120 million, told in his newly released memoir ‘Sonny Boy’ a crooked accountant fleeced him of $50 million, and it’s now emerged he also reveals in the book he took the part in Quentin Tarantino’s 2019 film as he liked his co-stars — and not because of the pay.
Al, who plays movie violence-obsessed movie producer Marvin Schwarz in the film, said in his autobiography: “(I’m now) famous in a different way, not so much because of the work I’m doing, but through my associations with various people and my appearing in certain things, and from living in Hollywood.
“I got lucky. I was in three films in a row that in different ways made a real impact, starting with ‘Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood’.
“I didn’t get paid the big bucks for it, but I was working with Quentin Tarantino, Leo DiCaprio, Brad Pitt, and Margot Robbie, and I did like the part.
“That’s why I did it, but I said to my lawyer, ‘How do I do this without being paid?’”
Al revealed in his book he ended up “broke” after his crooked accountant emptied his bank account.
The fraudster eventually served seven-and-a-half years in prison for running a Ponzi scheme.
Al said he started “to get warnings that my accountant at the time, a guy who had lots of celebrity clients, was not to be trusted” in around 2011.
The actor said he was already paying a “ridiculous amount of money to rent some big fancy house in Beverly Hills”, then he took his entire family on a trip to Europe where he flew various guests overseas on a “gorgeous Gulfstream 550” jet and rented an entire floor at the Dorchester hotel in London.
Al said it was only when he returned to his Hollywood home he became suspicious after realising his finances had not dramatically changed despite spending so much on vacation.
He said: “I thought, It’s simple. It’s clear. I just know this. Time stopped. I am f*****.
“I was broke. I had $50 million, and then I had nothing. I had property, but I didn’t have any money.
“In this business, when you make $10 million dollars for a film, it’s not $10 million.
“Because after the lawyers, and the agents, and the publicist, and the government, it’s not $10 million, it’s $4.5 million in your pocket.
“But you’re living above that because you’re high on the hog. And that’s how you lose it.
“It’s very strange, the way it happens. The more money you make, the less you have.”
