Al Pacino will receive the SAG-AFTRA Life Achievement Award, the union’s highest honor, SAG-AFTRA announced. The 86-year-old actor will become the 62nd recipient of the award when it is presented Feb. 28, 2027, at the Shrine Auditorium & Expo Hall in Los Angeles.
The Life Achievement Award is given annually to an actor who fosters what the union calls the “to Receive SAG-AFTRA Life Achievement Award “finest ideals of the acting profession,” according to SAG-AFTRA. Pacino will receive it at the 33rd Actor Awards ceremony, the event formerly known as the SAG Awards before its rebranding last year. The Screen Actors Guild launched the show in 1995 as the SAG Awards.
SAG-AFTRA Life Achievement Award Honor And Career Recognition
SAG-AFTRA President Sean Astin praised Pacino in a statement announcing the honor. “Like so many actors, I have spent my life in awe and appreciation of the force of nature that is Al Pacino,” Astin said. “When you watch him perform, you are witnessing a student and a master.
Al Pacino is an artist of extraordinary courage, intensity and heart whose work has always set an exceptional standard of skill and talent. All of that and he’s just plain fun to watch. SAG-AFTRA is proud to celebrate Al Pacino with our union’s highest honor.”
In response, Pacino said, “I wondered and wandered most of my life but have always felt at home with a script and my fellow actors. It’s the work and the actors along the way that have been among the greatest joys of my life. It’s an honor to be recognized by SAG-AFTRA in celebrating the journey.”
Pacino’s Seven-Decade Career
Pacino’s career spans seven decades, beginning with his major film debut in 1971’s “The Panic in Needle Park.” His breakthrough came as Michael Corleone in “The Godfather,” which earned him his first Oscar nomination for supporting actor, a role he reprised in two sequels.
He has since been nominated for nine Academy Awards and won once, for Best Actor in “Scent of a Woman.” In 1992, Pacino became the first male actor to earn two acting Oscar nominations in the same year for two different films, recognized for both “Glengarry Glen Ross” and “Scent of a Woman.”
On stage, Pacino has won two Tony Awards, the first for Best Featured Actor in 1969 for his Broadway debut in “Does a Tiger Wear a Necktie?” and the second for Best Actor in 1977’s “The Basic Training of Pavlo Hummel.” His television work includes two Primetime Emmy Awards, one for playing Roy Cohn in HBO’s 2003 miniseries “Angels in America” and another for portraying Dr. Jack Kevorkian in HBO’s “You Don’t Know Jack.” He has also won two Actor Awards from the union now presenting him its top honor.
Beyond SAG-AFTRA’s recognition, Pacino holds the AFI Life Achievement Award, the Golden Globes’ Cecil B. DeMille Award and a Kennedy Center Honor.
Humanitarian Work
Pacino’s record outside acting includes support for the Shakespeare Center of Los Angeles and humanitarian recognition from the Southern California Chapter of the Arthritis Foundation, which gave him its Jane Wyman Humanitarian Award in 2009, according to Deadline. He took part in the 2001 “America: A Tribute to Heroes” telethon benefiting families affected by the Sept. 11 attacks, the ONE Campaign’s 2005 Make Poverty History initiative and a 2012 relief campaign following Hurricane Sandy.
Recent Honorees And What’s Next
Pacino joins a recent run of Life Achievement Award recipients that includes Harrison Ford in 2026, Jane Fonda in 2024, Barbra Streisand in 2023, Sally Field in 2022, Helen Mirren in 2021 and Robert De Niro in 2020, according to Deadline.
The 33rd Actor Awards ceremony is set for Feb. 28, 2027, at the Shrine Auditorium & Expo Hall in Los Angeles, where Pacino will formally accept the honor.
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