It's hard to imagine ''The Godfather'' without Al Pacino. His understated performance as Michael Corleone, who became a respectable war hero despite his corrupt family, goes almost unnoticed for the first hour of the film -- until at last he asserts himself, gradually taking control of the Corleone criminal operation and the film along with it.

But there would be no Al Pacino without ''The Godfather,'' either. The actor was a rising star of New York theater with just one movie role, in the 1971 drug drama ''The Panic in Needle Park,'' when Francis Ford Coppola fought for him, against the wishes of Paramount Pictures, to play the ruminative prince of his Mafia epic. A half-century's worth of pivotal cinematic roles followed, including two more turns as Michael Corleone in ''The Godfather Part II'' and ''Part III.''

''The Godfather'' premiered in New York on March 15, 1972, and 50 years later, you can imagine all the reasons Pacino wouldn't want to talk about it anymore. Maybe he'd be embarrassed or annoyed about how this one performance, from the outset of his movie career, still dominates his résumé, or perhaps he has said all there is to say about it.

But in a telephone interview last month, Pacino, now 81, was quite philosophical, even whimsical, about discussing the film. He remains an ardent admirer of the movie and of the lengths that Coppola and his co-stars went to support him, and he is still awe-struck about how it single-handedly gave him his career.

''I'm here because I did 'The Godfather,''' Pacino said, speaking from his home in Los Angeles. ''For an actor, that's like winning the lottery. When it comes right down to it, I had nothing to do with the film but play the part.''

As Coppola recalled it, Pacino was who he saw in the role all along and a candidate worth going to the mattresses for, despite his lack of a track record.

''When I actually read the 'Godfather' book, I kept imagining him,'' Coppola said in a separate interview. ''And I didn't have a second choice. It was, for me, always Al Pacino. That's the reason why I was so tenacious about getting him to play Michael. That was my problem.''

But for the actor, delivering the performance of a lifetime brought its own burdens, as he would learn in the years that followed.

''It's hard to explain in today's world -- to explain who I was at that time and the bolt of lightning that it was,'' Pacino said. ''I felt like, all of a sudden, some veil was lifted and all eyes were on me. Of course, they were on others in the film. But 'The Godfather' gave me a new identity that was hard for me to cope with.''

Pacino spoke further about getting hired for and making ''The Godfather,'' the weight of its legacy and why he never played another film character like Michael Corleone after it. These are edited excerpts from our...