Michelle Pfeiffer was “scared” to work with Al Pacino on ‘Scarface’
There was a period when the chances of Michelle Pfeiffer making it as a Hollywood star looked bleak. This came at the start of her movie career when the young actor was still finding her way in the industry. Her first starring role came via Grease 2, the much-maligned follow-up to the 1978 hit Grease, which starred Olivia Newton-John and John Travolta. It was a terrible way to introduce yourself to the industry.
In the years since, Pfeiffer has made her thoughts on Grease 2 clear. She has also spoken extensively about the next movie that followed it, 1983’s Scarface, a title credited with saving her career and showing the world what she could really do. In Brian De Palma’s crime drama, she played Elvira Hancock, the trophy wife of drug lord Frank Lopez, who eventually marries Al Pacino’s main character, Tony Montana.
Whilst Pfeiffer would deliver one of her definitive performances in Scarface, it did not come without its trials. The first was securing the job. Seasoned veteran Al Pacino was concerned “she didn’t look right”, according to producer Martin Bregman, who insisted she came in for an audition despite the actor’s reservations.
Speaking on The Skinny Confidential podcast in January 2023, Pfeiffer revealed that while she was in the running to play Elvira, she was mentally “tortured” when waiting to hear back. Compounding matters, she was scared she was “going to be bad” in front of Al Pacino and the other cast members.
She recalled: “I cried myself to sleep almost every night on Scarface. It was obviously a huge deal for me. Al wanted someone else, understandably so. I mean, I’m the girl from Grease 2, you know what I mean? I was just sort of… Then like a month later, they called me back for a screen test. And I was, it was mixed because I was kind of, by that point, so happy to be out of my misery, and I was being tortured.”
Asked by the host what she was so “scared of”, Pfeiffer clarified: “That I was going to be bad. I had such a lack of hope that I would ever get this part. I was so chill. I mean, I just walked in, and I did a really good screen test, and that’s how I got the part.”
Things turned out better than expected for Pfeiffer, with Elvira now one of her most memorable roles. It opened the door for the rest of her career, including the brilliance of The Witches of Eastwick and Dangerous Liaisons. Informed by one of the hosts that she went as Elvira for Halloween, Pfeiffer acknowledged: “The look is super iconic”.
Despite Scarface being a momentous moment in Michelle Pfeiffer’s career and the start of her becoming a genuine star, after the stress of auditioning was out of the way, she still had hurdles to dodge. Indicative of the era, her experience on set was challenging because she was one of the only women.
In an interview with Darren Aronofsky for Interview Magazine, she explained: “I can tell you that I was terrified. And it was a six-month shoot, I think. Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio and I were really the only females. It was a boys’ club. And it was also the nature of the relationship for Tony Montana to be very dismissive of my character. So I would go to sleep some nights crying.”
