Michelle Pfeiffer Was ‘Terrified’ Every Day Filming Scarface

Michelle Pfeiffer’s role in Scarface might be iconic now, but it got off to a rocky start.

Pfeiffer, 67, opened up about the movie on the Sept. 29 episode of the SmartLess podcast. In the 1983 film, she played Elvira Hancock, who ultimately married Al Pacino’s Tony Montana. It was directed by Brian De Palma.

“I didn’t have any idea it would become sort of a cultural phenomenon,” she told the podcast hosts, Sean Hayes , Jason Bateman and Will Arnett. Filming the movie, she said, was “really intense” for her. Shooting went on for six months, a couple of months longer than originally planned.

“I was playing a coke addict, so I was not eating,” she said. “And I kept getting skinnier and skinnier. The crew were bringing me bagels.” For the movie’s final scene, her character needed to be “strung out” and “at her worst,” but the scene kept getting pushed back.

She also noted that, besides costar Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, it was a movie and set dominated by “guys.” She explained, “Gangster guys and machismo and they were all kind of a little bit in character all the time.”

At the time, she was 23 and her most recent credit was Grease 2.  “I just didn’t have a lot of experience under my belt. And I was terrified. Every night I was terrified,” she continued. “I didn’t feel worthy. I didn’t feel like I had the chops. I didn’t have any experience behind me. I had zero confidence.” 

She added that Pacino, 85, also didn’t want her for the part originally. She then told one of her “favorite stories” about making him bleed during her screen test. 

Pfeiffer said that during her first audition for De Palma and the casting director, she was “good.” “Then they want to bring me back to meet Al. Over the course of two months, I just get worse and worse and worse because I’m just afraid. And by the end, I’m bad,” she said. She didn’t “blame” Pacino for thinking she was bad, either. 

“Brian finally comes to me and says, ‘You know, doll, it’s just not going to work out,” she said. She apologized to him because he “really wanted” her for the role. “Fear is the worst. It’s an actor’s enemy. It just completely undermines you. So as disappointed as I was, I was so happy to be done with it.”

But a month later, she got called back in for a screen test. “I show up and I don’t even give a s— because I know I’m not getting this part,” she remembered. “It was my best work of the film, of course.”

It was the restaurant scene at the end of the film. “I swipe the table of the dishes and glasses break, the dishes break. Cut. There’s blood everywhere,” she said. Everyone ran over to her to see where she’d cut herself. “I didn’t cut me. I cut Al. I thought, ‘Well, there goes that part.’”

But Pacino, who was cut on the finger, wasn’t upset. “Actually, I think that was the day he was like, ‘Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think she’s not bad.’ ” Pfeiffer said the experience taught her a mantra for her performances and auditions: “I don’t give a s—.”

Scarface ended up being Pfeiffer’s breakout role. The movie received a mixed critical reception at the time, but was a box office smash and has had a lasting cultural impact. 

Five years later, Pfeiffer received her first Oscar nomination for 1988’s Dangerous Liaisons. She was also Oscar-nominated for 1989’s The Fabulous Baker Boys and 1992’s Love Field.