Michelle Pfeiffer has opened up about the thorny casting of Brian De Palma’s Scarface. Al Pacino didn’t really want her on the project.
Are there remakes that managed to be better than the original? It’s a broad question, and the answer remains pretty nuanced. The Thing is far more cult than The Thing from Another World, but is it really a better film? The question also arises with Scorsese’s The Departed, which reimagined the first installment of the excellent Hong Kong trilogy Infernal Affairs. We can also mention Friedkin’s Sorcerer or Cronenberg’s The Fly… yet few of these works have achieved the same status as Brian De Palma’s Scarface.
Tony Montana has become one of cinema’s most iconic characters, the quintessential gangster—after The Godfather, of course. Rappers constantly reference him, several lines from the film have circulated around the world, and Pacino’s performance is perhaps the most famous role of his career.
But opposite him, Pfeiffer’s magnetic, alluring presence doesn’t sit in the shadows. On the contrary, it elevates the film even further and helps cement its status as a cult classic. Yet the actress nearly didn’t appear in it because Al Pacino didn’t want her.
A scar on the brow… and more
In a conversation with Entertainment Weekly, Michelle Pfeiffer explained that she almost missed out on the role:
“Al will admit it himself, but at the core, he didn’t really want me for the part. In fact, during my first meeting with De Palma and the casting director, I had been excellent. But over the two months that followed, I became worse and worse, because I was terrified of screwing up. And in the end, I was really bad.”
“So I don’t blame him. He just said, ‘She’s not good.’ And Brian ended up coming to see me and telling me, ‘Sweetheart, this isn’t going to work.’ And I told him, ‘I know. I’m sorry.’ And I was, because Brian, he really wanted me.”
We were thus moments away from a Scarface without Michelle Pfeiffer, and that would have been a real shame given how her presence echoes Tony Montana’s spiral in De Palma’s film. But fortunately, just as the actress had walked away, one phone call changed everything for her:
“As disappointed as I was, I was mainly relieved that it was over. And then, at least a month later, I got a call: they want me to take one more test. So I go, but I’m completely not bothered, because I know I won’t get the role. And that turned into my best scene in the movie.”
“It was the restaurant sequence, the one where I blow up at the end. I sweep the table, dishes fly, glasses shatter, cut. There’s blood everywhere. Everyone rushes over to see where I cut myself. Actually, no. I hadn’t cut myself. I’d cut Al. I told myself, ‘Okay, there goes the role.’ But I think that’s the day Al decided, ‘Yeah, okay, actually she’s not bad.’”
Following Viggo Mortensen’s kick in The Lord of the Rings and Leonardo DiCaprio’s hand in Django, here’s another on-set anecdote to share at family dinners to dodge political discussions. Pfeiffer needed a relaxed confidence to convince Al Pacino that she could stand as his equal, even if it meant cutting him off in the process.
Knowing the man and his love of acting, it’s not surprising that such a gesture gave him the itch to keep working with the actress. Pfeiffer will soon be seen in Oh. What. Fun., a Christmas comedy that will stream on Prime Video on December 3.
