Before Michelle Pfeiffer landed the part of Elvira, Tony Montana’s wife, in the movie Scarface she had just acted in Grease 2 which was a box office flop. It turns out that director Brian de Palma and star Al Pacino initially resisted auditioning her because of Grease 2. However producer Martin Bregman convinced the two to give her a shot and as you know, she not only nailed the role but became a total superstar afterwards.
34 years later Pfeiifer is being candid about her experience in Hollywood, why she’s been out of the spotlight so long, and what exactly went on during Scarface. In an interview with Darren Aronofsky for Interview Magazine, the three-time Oscar nominee says of her time filming Scarface:
“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,” she told the mag. “And it was also the nature of the relationship, for Tony Montana (Al Pacino) to be very dismissive of my character. So I would go to sleep some nights crying.”
And getting into character was not easy.
‘How’d it happen?’ she questioned. ‘I’m very willful, you know. I’m a survivor. It’s in my nature. I don’t look so tough, but I am. And I think I was able to hide behind the tough exterior of that character, who was just sort of tuned out and tuned off, drugged.’
A Scarface reboot is in the making which will star Diego Luna as Tony Montana but that has absolutely nothing to do with Pfeiffer’s admission.
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