The iconic role Robert De Niro blackmailed Al Pacino into playing: “If you don’t do it, I’m going to do it”
Even though they didn’t share the screen until 1995 when they sat down for their first, and instantly iconic, exchange in Michael Mann’s crime classic, Heat, Robert De Niro and Al Pacino had been friends for decades and inextricably linked in Hollywood since the early 1970s.
They first met as unknown actors looking to make a name for themselves in 1968, and have remained close ever since. Through no fault of their own, their shared status as Italian-American performers who quickly became known as generational talents meant that they’d spend their peak years always being mentioned in the same breath.
Then again, there were a few cinematic connections between them. De Niro was under consideration to play Michael Corleone in The Godfather, which became Pacino’s big-screen breakout role, and then the former won his first Academy Award for playing a younger version of the latter’s father in the seminal sequel, making it almost inevitable that they’d be talked about as the 1A and 1B of their era.
The year before Francis Ford Coppola’s masterpiece was released, Pacino had been cast as the lead in James Goldstone’s crime caper, The Gang That Couldn’t Shoot Straight, but dropped out when he landed The Godfather. Scrambling to find a replacement on short notice, he was replaced by De Niro.
The Scent of a Woman Oscar-winner also took top billing as Tony D’Amato in Oliver Stone’s Any Given Sunday because De Niro had demanded too much money, and it was understandable that they’d be in the running for so many of the same jobs when they resided nowhere other than the top end of the casting wish list.
One thing De Niro had that Pacino didn’t was a directorial muse, and while the Dog Day Afternoon and Serpico legend collaborated with some of the greatest directors of ‘New Hollywood’ and beyond, he never had a frequent and definitive behind-the-camera partnership like the one his old pal had with Martin Scorsese.
The duo could have added yet another timeless piece of pop culture iconography to their collection when they were circling the Scarface remake in the early stages of development. Pacino was deliberating on whether or not to make the film when he was issued an ultimatum.
“We were talking about Scarface, and you were considering who to do it… what director,” De Niro recalled. “And I was saying, ‘You should really do it with Brian [De Palma], of the choices you had. And I said, ‘If you don’t do it, I’m going to do it.'”
The Raging Bull figurehead was familiar with De Palma, having worked with him on The Wedding Party, Greetings, and Hi, Mom!, during the beginnings of their respective careers, but if he was going to do Scarface, he would only do it with Scorsese at the helm. Pacino “didn’t know that Marty and Bob were interested in it,” but he quickly made his mind up after discovering that they were waiting in the wings.
