Angels in America (2003)
Al Pacino: Roy Cohn
Photos
Quotes
-
Roy Cohn : [under the impression that Belize is the Angel of Death] Can I ask you something, sir?
Belize : [going along with it] "Sir"?
Roy Cohn : What's it like? After?
Belize : After...?
Roy Cohn : This misery ends?
Belize : Hell or heaven?
Roy Cohn : ...heh...
Belize : Like San Francisco.
Roy Cohn : A city! Good! I was worried... it'd be a garden. I hate that shit.
Belize : Mmmm. Big city. Overgrown with weeds, but flowering weeds. On every corner a wrecking crew and something new and crooked going up catty corner to that. Windows missing in every edifice like broken teeth, gritty wind, and a gray high sky full of ravens.
Roy Cohn : Isaiah.
Belize : Prophet birds, Roy. Piles of trash, but lapidary like rubies and obsidian, and diamond-colored cowspit streamers in the wind. And voting booths. And everyone in Balenciaga gowns with red corsages, and big dance palaces full of music and lights and racial impurity and gender confusion. And all the deities are creole, mulatto, brown as the mouths of rivers. Race, taste and history finally overcome. And you ain't there.
Roy Cohn : And Heaven?
Belize : That was Heaven, Roy.
Roy Cohn : The fuck it was!
-
Roy Cohn : AIDS. Homosexual. Gay. Lesbian. You think these are names that tell you who a person sleeps with, but they don't tell you that.
Henry : No?
Roy Cohn : No. Like all labels they tell you one thing, and one thing only: Where does an individual so identified fit into the food chain, the pecking order? Not ideology or sexual taste, but something much simpler: clout. Not who I fuck or who fucks me, but who will come to the phone when I call, who owes me favors. This is what a label refers to. Now to someone who does not understand this, a homosexual is what I am because I have sex with men, but really this is wrong. A homosexual is somebody who, in 15 years of trying cannot get a pissant anit-discrimination bill through the city council. A homosexual is somebody who knows nobody and who nobody knows. Who has zero clout. Does this sound like me Henry?
-
Roy Cohn : I have sex with men. But unlike nearly every other man of whom this is true, I bring the guy I'm screwing to the White House and President Reagan smiles at us and shakes his hand.
-
Roy Cohn : [on why he wanted Ethel Rosenberg to get the death sentence] I would have pulled the switch if they let me. Why? Because I hate traitors. I HATE communists. Was it legal? FUCK legal. Not nice? Fuck nice. The Nation says I'm not nice? FUCK THE NATION. Do you wanna be NICE? Or you wanna be EFFECTIVE?
-
Roy Cohn : You don't know what all I know. *I* don't know what all I know. Half this shit I make up and I'm still right, learned that in the 50's.
-
[Ethel Rosenberg walks into the room]
Roy Cohn : Aw, fuck. Ethel.
Ethel Rosenberg : You don't look so good, Roy.
Roy Cohn : Well, Ethel. I don't feel so good.
Ethel Rosenberg : But you lost a lot of weight. That suits you. You were heavy back then. Zaftig, mit hips.
Roy Cohn : I haven't been that heavy since 1960. We were all heavier back then, before the body thing started. Now I look like a skeleton they stare at.
Ethel Rosenberg : The shit's really hit the fan, huh, Roy? The fun's just started.
Roy Cohn : What is this Ethel, Halloween? You trying to scare me? Well you're wasting your time 'cause I'm scarier than you are any day of the week! So beat it, Ethel! Boo! Better dead than red! Somebody trying to shake me up? Hm, hm? From the throne of God in heaven to the belly of hell, you can all fuck yourselves and then go jump in the lake because I am not afraid of you or death or hell or anything!
Ethel Rosenberg : I'll be seeing you soon, Roy. Julius sends his regards.
Roy Cohn : Yeah, well send this to Julius!
[Roy flips her the bird]
Ethel Rosenberg : You really are a very sick man, Roy.
-
Roy Cohn : Life is full of horror; nobody escapes, nobody; save yourself. Whatever pulls on you, whatever needs from you, threatens you. Don't be afraid; people are so afraid; don't be afraid to live in the raw wind, naked, alone... Learn at least this: What you are capable of. Let nothing stand in your way.
-
Martin Heller : It's the fear of what comes after the doing that makes the doing hard to do.
Roy Cohn : Amen.
Martin Heller : But you can almost always live with the consequences.
-
Roy Cohn : I have all the time in the world.
Ethel Rosenberg : You're immortal.
Roy Cohn : I'm immortal. Ethel. I have forced my way into history. I ain't never gonna die.
Ethel Rosenberg : History is about to crack wide open. Millenium approaches.
-
Roy Cohn : [Referring to his heart] Tough little muscle. Never bleeds.
-
Belize : [seeing that Roy appears dead] Is he...
Ethel Rosenberg : Mm hmm.
Roy Cohn : [rising from his bed] No I'm not! I fooled you, Ethel! I knew it was you the whole time! I can't believe you actually feel for that Ma stuff! I just wanted to see if I could finally, FINALLY, make Ethel Rosenberg sing! I win!
[He starts to flatline again]
Roy Cohn : Oh... fuck.
