When Brenda Fricker broke Al Pacino’s heart

On By Littum

Brenda Fricker - Al Pacino - Split

(Credits: Far Out / Thomas Schulz / Alan Light)

You would probably recognize Brenda Fricker’s face, even if you don’t recognize her name. The Irish character actor has appeared in dozens of high-profile films over the years, including A time to kill, Home Alone 2, So I married an ax murdererand Albert Nobbs. She even became the first Irish female actor to win an Oscar when she received the award for ‘Best Supporting Actress’ for her role in My left foot in 1990. To this day, only three other Irish actors have won Oscars, although Daniel Day-Lewis has made up for the omission by winning three.

When an actor wins an Oscar, they are invited back to the ceremony the following year to present the statuette in the same category to the opposite sex. So in 1991, Fricker was tasked with announcing the award for ‘Best Supporting Actor’. It was a stacked year. Andy Garcia was nominated for The Godfather Part IIIJoe Pesci was nominated for Goodfellasand Al Pacino was nominated for Dick Tracya crime thriller that also starred Warren Beatty and Madonna. In addition to these heavy-hitters was Native American actor Graham Greene, who was nominated for Dances with Wolvesand Bruce Davison for his role in Long-term companionwhich was the first widely released film to address the AIDS epidemic.

Most thought Pacino had it in the bag. It was his sixth nomination, and if nothing else the Academy might have offered it to him as a consolation prize for so many years of near misses. Fricker certainly thought so. Unfortunately, that assumption led to awkward consequences. During a performance at The Tommy Tiernan Show in 2021, she recalled bumping into Pacino backstage before the award was announced and how she got a little overconfident with her predictions.

“I came out (of the toilet) with the envelope and I saw out of the corner of my eye this elderly man on the railings,” she said. “It looked like he was in trouble. So I said, ‘wait a minute,’ and I went over and said, ‘Are you okay?’ and his face came up and it was Al Pacino.”

Aside from the fact that Pacino was barely 50 at the time and therefore not an “older man”, he was apparently quite distraught about having to go through yet another ceremony not knowing if he would win. So Fricker tried to calm down.

“I said, ‘But you’re going to win, this is the envelope, your name is in here, there’s no problem with that,'” she recalled. This seemed to calm Pacino, who got up from the floor and left. Fricker hadn’t actually opened the envelope, and when she did (while standing on stage in front of the live audience), it was Joe Pesci’s name that she read aloud.

The actor didn’t say if she spoke to Pacino after the ceremony, but it’s safe to say she wasn’t his favorite person that night. To his credit, he didn’t look particularly shocked when Fricker said Pesci’s name – he immediately started clapping, as all good sports should do for their victorious rivals. Fortunately for him, he only had to wait two years to return to the Oscars, and he did so in style by winning a ‘Best Supporting Actor’ nomination for Glengarry Glen Ross and finally wins ‘Best Actor’ for Scent of a woman.

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