Al Pacino Almost Adopted Me, Says EastEnders Sid Owen

The former EastEnders star claimed that the Hollywood superstar Al Pacino almost adopted him and saved him from crime.

The 49-year-old actor shared that he had a troubled childhood. His father left his family when he was six. Almost two years later, his mom Joan died from cervical cancer when Owen was seven. At that time, his alcoholic father was in jail. So, Sid was raised by his aunt Carol and her husband, Michael.

In the second extract of his book Rags to Ricky, Sid Owens tells his story of how he found salvation in acting after such a rough start in life. In a part of this extract, he shared how he met Al Pacino when he starred in a movie with him.

In 1985, a few weeks after my 13th birthday, an opportunity came up for a part in an epic, big-budget film called Revolution.

At the audition the feed line was, “I have to tell you your mum’s died”, so the reaction they wanted was lots of emotion.

Of course, that line brought it all back for me — how it was losing my mum all those years before. And I felt it for real.

That was probably what got me the job, because I did a bloody good job of crying.

I was cast as Ned, the son of Al Pacino’s character Tom Dobb.

Drama lessons don’t come much better than working with Al Pacino.

By then, he was known for films like The Godfather, Serpico and Scarface, and had picked up several Oscar nominations.

When I started on Revolution, there was a lot for us to work through together to make our father-and-son relationship convincing, so we got into a routine where every day I’d go to his trailer and we’d run lines, whatever we were doing that day.

He knew I had no parents and was from a difficult background, though we didn’t really talk about it.

He didn’t have kids of his own then and I found out later he had considered adopting me.

One time he said: “Come out to New York when this is finished.”

We kept in touch and years later, I took my first serious girlfriend, Amanda, to New York where he invited us to stay with him and his partner at the time, Diane Keaton.

We still catch up every now and then.

Sid made his debut appearance in EastEnders almost three years after starring with Al Pacino.