Did Al Pacino insist that Keanu Reeves’ salary be slashed?
In the early 1980s, Keanu Reeves began acting on stage with a series of performances at the Hedgerow Theater in Pennsylvania. His first hint of Hollywood fame came in 1986 after an appearance in Youngblood. Just three years later, Reeves would enjoy his crucial break on screen with the classic sci-fi comedy Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure, in which he starred opposite Alex Winter.
By the mid-1990s, Reeves had become one of Hollywood’s most sought-after talents after appearing in several successful movies, including Point Break, Speed and Bram Stoker’s Dracula. After appearing in Chain Reaction in 1996, Reeves sought to disassociate himself from the quintessential action hero and hence turned down a promised $11million for the sequel to Speed.
With Jason Patric taking over on Speed 2, Reeves could sign on to work with Taylor Hackford on the Faustian horror The Devil’s Advocate. Based on Andrew Neiderman’s 1990 novel of the same name, the movie ultimately starred a devious Al Pacino opposite Reeves’ lawyer character Kevin Lomax.
Through the early 1990s, some early adaptation attempts had Pacino earmarked for the role of the satanic John Milton, but The Godfather star was dubious. Pacino felt the character was somewhat clichéd and instead suggested Robert Redford and Sean Connery for the role.
The earliest adaptation plan was devised by director Joel Schumacher, who had Brad Pitt on board for the role of Lomax. “Brad and I were going to do it,” Schumacher told the Los Angeles Times in 1997. “All the sets were designed, and we were practically ready to go, but we couldn’t find someone right for the devil’s role.”
“It was this very dark, seductive tale about the power of evil. I remember one incredible scene where Brad would have been chased through the different levels of New York’s subway system, with each level being a level of hell in Dante’s Inferno,” Schumacher continued.
“But the script needed work, and I knew that Brad was on the cusp of his breakthrough as a star. I didn’t want to take any chances for him. That was a key reason why I decided to pass. So did he.”
When Hackford picked up the threads, he tried to persuade Pacino to take on the role. At first, the actor put up some resistance. “Right from the start, I could feel there was something on Taylor’s mind,” Pacino once told the New York Daily News. “Something he feels he can go after. It’s a sense you just get from some people, and Taylor has it. But the very first time I saw the script, it wasn’t complete.”
Determined to meet Pacino’s requirements, Hackford made several edits to his script. “Then that thing Taylor was reaching for, it finally started manifesting itself in the script,” Pacino continued. “Suddenly, it became a challenge. [But] you want a challenge in this business, you want to see if you can reach what you’re going for.”
Although Pacino was starting to see sense in the script, his monetary demands, as a Hollywood veteran, were rather eyewatering for Hackford. The studio’s $57million budget sadly couldn’t reasonably accommodate such demands, but the famous “nice guy”, Keanu Reeves, stepped in to save the day.
Understanding the honour of sharing the screen with Pacino at this stage in his career, Reeves surrendered $2million of his paycheque to help cover the cost. “I’d rather people didn’t know that,” Reeves commented on his generous act during a 2019 press conference. “It was a private transaction. It was something I could afford to do, a worthwhile thing to do.”
Whether or not Pacino was aware of Reeves’ financial facilitation at the time is uncertain, but the Canadian actor cherishes the experience and hasn’t been hard up since. “I knew by working with [Mr Pacino] I could only raise my game, so to speak,” he once reflected on shooting The Devil’s Advocate. “We work in totally different ways, but our relationship was, for me anyway, fantastic. I had some of the best times of my life with him.”
Watch the trailer for The Devil’s Advocate below.
