Ahead of Sunday’s 2025 Oscars, PEOPLE is looking back at past ceremonies and sharing behind-the-scenes stories from Hollywood’s most prestigious event.
Al Pacino was a Hollywood veteran — and eight-time Oscar nominee — by the time he actually won for Scent of a Woman in 1993.
In his 2024 memoir Sonny Boy, Pacino, now 84, recalls losing seven times over the course of two decades, and finally tasting victory at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in Los Angeles on March 29, 1993.
“I sat there glassy‑eyed and numb as they listed me and my fellow nominees for Best Actor,” wrote Pacino, who was up against Clint Eastwood (Unforgiven), Robert Downey Jr. (Chaplin), Stephen Rea (The Crying Game) and Denzel Washington (Malcolm X).
“But just as they announced my name as the winner, I had a feeling that this time they would finally do it. I threw back my head and let out a sigh. This was my first time in eight tries that I’d finally won — having already lost for the seventh time earlier that night — so when I got up onstage, I started my speech with a line that a friend had suggested to me,” continued Pacino, who was also nominated that night in the Best Supporting Actor category for Glengarry Glen Ross. (He lost to Unforgiven’s Gene Hackman.)
“I said, ‘Well, you broke my streak.’ That got a laugh, but there was truth in it too. It was a truly powerful moment to see that entire audience stand up and applaud me, and the gratitude I felt was real,” wrote Pacino.
After thanking costar Chris O’Donnell and director Marty Brest, Pacino felt a bit lost: “I didn’t know where to go. I just left the stage with my Oscar and there was Barbra Streisand in the wings,” he recalled.
“She gave me a little A‑ OK hand gesture and said, ‘I voted for you, Al.’ And I said, ‘Thanks, Barbra.’”
Unfortunately for Pacino, he didn’t get to bask in his peers’ adoration at the Oscar after-parties. He was due in New York City the very next morning to shoot Carlito’s Way, so as soon as he left the Academy Awards ceremony, he ducked into a car and went to the airport and flew via private jet to the Big Apple.
“None of the afterglow that I expected. But I was on this big plane by myself, just me and my Oscar, and I could handle the solitude,” he recalled.
Conan O’Brien hosts the 2025 Oscars, which will air live from the Dolby Theatre at Ovation Hollywood on Sunday, March 2, at 7 p.m. ET on ABC and Hulu.
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