Al Pacino's dream role is to play Napoleon Bonaparte.

The 75-year-old actor has revealed he's wanted to portray the French military general on the big screen for a number of years and his ambition could be about to come true - as a script for the part has recently been presented to him.

He said: ''Napoleon has been a dream of mine for a long time. It's come close but this time it really could happen. There's a great script about his last years on Saint Helena.''

Saint Helena was the colonised British island where Napoleon was detained in 1815 after being defeated at the Battle of Waterloo by the British Army, and is where he died in 1821 at the age of 51.

The Hollywood legend - who at 5ft 6in is just an inch taller than Napoleon - is confident he could do the historical role justice as he's sure it wouldn't be impossible to imitate a man who lived almost 200 years ago.

In an interview with the Metro newspaper, he said: ''People think you have to be the exact person but you can only give a version of someone. When I played (whistle-blowing New York cop) Frank Serpico I wasn't being the real Serpico, even though he was there. It was my take.''

The Academy Award-winning actor can currently be seen in new comedy/drama film 'Danny Collins', which is loosely based on a true story.

In the movie, Pacino plays an ageing rock star who is stuck in a rut, with the star saying he channelled ''the love child of Rod Stewart and Barry Manilow'' to play the part of Danny.