Seventeen

A decade later all involved agree that Pfeiffer was perfect casting as the snooty debutante cocaine connoisseur. But back in 1982 casting director Alixe Gordin had to persuade De Palma (who had seen Grease 2 and hated it) even to allow her to read for the role. And then Gordin recalls telling her thanks, but they were looking elsewhere. Five weeks later, when Pfeiffer thought she had missed her chance to work with Pacino and De Palma, she was called back and given the role. But things still were not fixed.

And the problems weren't all about Pfeiffer's casting. The $24 million film angered Miami's Cuban community when it was announced. There were bomb threats, and De Palma had to move much of the production back to California. No one wanted any problems with the casting.

Marty Bergman is an outgoing man, the opposite to his friend Pacino. As well as Scarface they teamed for Serpico (1973), Scarecrow (1973), Dog Day Afternoon (1975) and Sea of Love (1989). Bergman also encouraged Pacino in his first starring role in 1971's Panic in Needle Park and persuaded him to appear in his star making role as Michael Corleone in The Godfather in 1972. Over coffee at a hotel in Beverly Hills the eminent producer is dismissive of his influence over the man who is now a screen legend.

But his connections with the leading player in Scarface were more than helpful in getting Pfeiffer into the film. It was a difficult task: 'I forced that to happen against strenuous objections from almost everyone. But when she read the part on stage with Al it was magic. There was such an intensity.'

Pfeiffer remembers the reading with Pacino with a shiver: 'I was terrified, so terrified. I couldn't say two words to him [Pacino]. We were both really shy. We'd sit in a room, and it was like pulling teeth to try and find any words at all. And the subject matter was so dark. There was a coldness in the film relationship.

'I was very excited to work with Al, but I was also intimidated by him. I had to play a cold and aloof woman, very different from my personality and a difficult character for me to hold on to.'

She held on. Yes, she had again been cast for her 'look', and in the film it is perfect. She is the fantasy figure, the woman every man in the audience wants to show who's boss. As Tony Montana does. Except he marries her and buys a mansion that he turns into a monument of bad taste for them to live in. In a subplot, Montana, with dark desires, gets overly paternal and protective with his young sister played by Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio. In her big scene, wearing nothing but a flimsy unopened robe she runs her hands up and down her body taunting the brother who has just killed her husband to 'fuck me, fuck me, fuck me'. When Pacino's Montana gets to the boil she pulls out a gun and starts firing crazily at him before being torn apart by machinegun fire herself.

In these 'dark' circumstances it was understandable that the actress would bond with Pfeiffer. They were both newcomers and Scarface was a very macho movie.

During a conversation at a hotel on Hollywood's Sunset Boulevard, Mastrantonio said:

“Scarface was heavy. I loved working with Al and Michelle very much. But it was an odd set to be on. He was quiet and withdrawn. And I was shy and so was Michelle. It was a man's world and all these people with greasy hair and these big guns. We. girls didn't know why we were there.”