Michelle Pfeiffer is revealing the bloody moment that Al Pacino was convinced she was perfect for the role of Elvira in 1983’s Scarface.
The Oscar-nominated actress recently went on the SmartLess podcast, hosted by Will Arnett, Jason Bateman and Sean Hayes, to recall her lengthy audition process for the Brian De Palma-directed film. She said that while the filmmaker wanted her for the part, Pacino didn’t feel the same way at first.
“Al will admit this,” she said, “[but] he didn’t really want me for the part.”
The Age of Innocence actress recounted meeting De Palma and the casting director and crushing her first audition for the movie. However, “over the course of two months, I just [got] worse and worse and worse, because I’m just afraid. And by the end, I’m bad.”
Pfeiffer admitted she didn’t “blame” Pacino for his initial reaction. “He just was like, ‘[She’s] bad.’ And Brian finally comes to me and says, ‘You know, doll, it’s just not gonna work out. I’m like, ‘I know, man. I’m sorry.’ Because Brian really wanted me,” she explained.
“As disappointed as I was,” the Batman Returns star continued, “I was so happy to be done with it. So, like, at least a month goes by and I get a call, they want to bring me in to screen test. So I show up and I don’t even give a shit, ’cause I know I’m not getting this part.”
But to Pfeiffer’s surprise, the screen test, which she recalled was the “restaurant scene where I explode at the end,” ended up being “my best work of the film.”
Though it was a bloody accident during the audition that ultimately scored her the role. “I swipe the table of the dishes and glasses break, the dishes break, cut. There’s blood everywhere. They all run over to me, to see where I’ve cut myself. Well, I didn’t cut me. I cut Al,” she recalled, adding that she “cut him in the finger or something.”
“I thought, ‘Well, there goes that part.’ [But] actually I think that was the day [Pacino] was like, ‘Yeah, yeah. I think, yeah, she’s not bad,’” Pfeiffer added.
The 1983 crime classic follows determined, criminal-minded Cuban immigrant Tony Montana (Pacino), who becomes the biggest drug smuggler in Miami and is eventually undone by his own drug addiction. Elvira was Tony’s troubled wife, a drug-addicted socialite, who was the former lover of his boss, Frank Lopez (Robert Loggia).