An offer he didn't refuse

When Rolando Schirato approached Al Pacino about being in a TV commercial for the family business, he was knocked back. But then the star of The Godfather smelt the coffee.

Barry Levinson and Al Pacino on set during filming of the Vittoria commercials in New York.

THE day before Rolando Schirato met Al Pacino, he was looking for the right word to describe how he anticipated the experience. He threw out "excited" and "nervous" but finally settled on "surreal".

Schirato is the 27-year-old sales and marketing manager for Vittoria coffee, one of the largest pure coffee companies in Australia. “I was a massive fan of Al Pacino when I was growing up,” he says. “In my old bedroom at home, there are still a lot of posters of him and I have all his movies. This was something you dreamed of doing one day but now we’re shooting it, meeting him, it’s a bit surreal.”

By shooting it, Schirato means a TV and print campaign for Vittoria coffee, with – wait for it – Pacino as its face. It’s the first advertising campaign the Oscar- winning actor has done and landing the star of The Godfather, Scarface and Scent of a Woman is a huge coup. How did this Australian family company pull off what American multinationals couldn’t?

They asked. They were turned down. They asked again. Then, as any lawyer will tell you, it’s about making a great case. “Rolando suggested the 50th anniversary – Vittoria began roasting coffee in 1958 – would be a good time to do an upmarket commercial, something really special,” says Vittoria chief executive – and father – Les Schirato, often referred to as Australia’s coffee king.

“We wanted to do something really big as a celebration. I thought, I wonder if we could get Pacino?” adds Rolando. The company has always highlighted its Italian roots in its advertising, and Pacino reads about as Italian as you can get when it comes to major stars. “I knew he never did advertising and, to be honest, I wasn’t expecting [him to say yes]. We contacted his agent and straightaway they said, thank you, but no thank you.

“Six months passed and we thought, let’s give it one more go.” This time Pacino’s agent asked them to put together a package about the company and the coffee. In it, says Rolando, “we pointed out there are lot of good ties between our company and Al, both being Italian migrant families, making a success story in the new country. To our amazement, he said yes, let’s talk further.”

The next step was to send Pacino their coffee. It turns out the actor is as demanding of a good brew as he is about his acting. “We got a response really quickly, saying he loved it and wanted to talk about some concepts. That caught me completely by surprise,” admits Rolando.

That was late 2009. Then in May this year, Rolando and Les found themselves standing on MacDougal Street in New York’s Greenwich Village at 9am waiting for Pacino to arrive on the set. It was not your ordinary commercial shoot. Along with equipment, lights and monitors, there were four Vittoria baristas, two coffee carts and five coffee machines, all shipped from Australia, and a crew drinking espresso instead of watery New York diner coffee. They looked particularly happy about this.

Pacino materialised, exuding cool and wearing all black but for a blue scarf and sunglasses. It’s hard to believe he is 70. Introductions were made, hands shaken all around. “He came across almost shy at first,” recalls Rolando. “We thanked him, and he said, thank you for thinking of me.” Then everybody went to work.

The key players who assembled for the campaign are a Madison Avenue ad guy’s dream. Pacino brought Oscar-winning director Barry Levinson (Diner, Rain Man, Wag the Dog) on board, having recently worked with him on the TV movie You Don’t Know Jack. “Nothing was too set in stone with him,” recalls Rolando of Levinson. “If he saw something he liked he would change direction.” Celebrity photographer Brigitte Lacombe dashed around shooting the print campaign.

“Al has never been to Australia so we wanted to catch him where he lives, in his city,” says Rolando. The campaign, which was conceived in-house in Sydney with input from Pacino and Levinson is shot in black and white. There will be three TV commercials (which at the time of writing were still being edited) featuring shots of New York waking up, followed by Pacino sitting in an Italian cafe, talking about and drinking coffee.

His reminiscences range from the poignant – his first taste as a boy, when his grandfather fed it to him on a spoon – to the revelatory, and the witty. In one clip he admits all his film scripts have coffee stains on them. In another he teases those who don’t drink their coffee straight up. “Don’t insult coffee by putting sugar in it.” (Pacino was no slacker off camera either, downing three double macchiatos within the first 90 minutes of the shoot.)

The feel of the commercials is decidedly cinematic and Pacino appears at turns relaxed, intense, funny and also unscripted. This was deliberate. There was a clear concept for the shoot but the plan was for Pacino to speak loosely, more story-like. “We wanted it to feel authentic,” says Rolando. “Not a hard, corny sell. Barry loves to let his actors work like that ... letting things flow naturally.”

Because they didn’t close off the street, New York life just rolled on by between takes – yellow cabs, delivery trucks, paparazzi, locals walking their dogs. “What are they filming?” one woman asked. I told her it  was a coffee commercial for the Australian brand Vittoria. She didn’t look too impressed. “They filmed Sex and the City in this neighbourhood,” she returned, smug. I pointed out Pacino across the street. “What? Oh, he’s better than Sex and the City,” she conceded. Clearly, an Al Pacino sighting impresses work colleagues more than a Carrie Bradshaw.
During the lunch break and also at dinner, the Schiratos ate with Pacino. “We heard some wonderful stories about his career, about The Godfather, how a lot of people didn’t want to cast him in the part,” says Rolando. It was then that Pacino touched on why he chose to work with them. “My grandfather was Sicilian, as was his family,” says Rolando. “ He spoke about growing up in a family with Italian roots. He said he never wanted to do any advertising before, but he felt this was true to who he is. I think he liked the idea we are a family business.”

Vittoria last advertised on TV in the 1980s. Both father and son feel that it can be a “tricky medium” in terms of positioning so have “tended to stick to print”. When they started planning a return to TV and their initial approach to Pacino was rejected, they “spent a bit of time looking at other people [both foreign and local celebrities].” But the actor was still top of Rolando’s list, and the second try, as opposed to the traditional third, was the charm. The ad campaign starts airing this month.

“We are Australian and proud of it, we have certainly done plenty of things in Australia about Australians,” says Les. “In advertising, having someone like Al Pacino involved is unique … and a different opportunity for us. My aim is to convert more instant-coffee drinkers into drinking real coffee, and hopefully somebody like Al Pacino with that broad market appeal [will help].”

On the company drawing-board there are plans to push into the US market – already they do a small amount of business there – so the new campaign would translate perfectly. Rolando nods. “We haven’t had the discussion yet. I’m sure he would be open to talking about it.”

Not to get too psychological – we’re talking about coffee after all – but this experience seems to have bolstered an  already healthy father-son relationship. “To be honest, my first feeling was pride,” says Les, of when he heard his son had secured Pacino. “My father-in-law started this business. I guess it was always a bit of a proving thing for me; the fact that I saved the company from bankruptcy and built it up. I know sometimes for Rolando it must be incredibly tough [because] people will say, your Dad has done this. So, Rolando doing this for me ...”

I ask how they expect to best this coup. We joke the star of their next campaign will have to be Barack Obama. Les is certain his son will better it somehow. “I remember being his age and I sponsored two Vittoria Formula One cars in the Adelaide Grand Prix. People said, how will you top this? I guess Rolando just topped my Formula One.”