Get the latest gossip

Al Pacino Credits ‘Hip-Hop’ and ‘Rappers’ with Elevating ‘Scarface’ in Popular Culture

When it was first released, 'Scarface' wasn't that well received, but Pacino believes rappers helped give it acclaim.

When Brian De Palma’s reinvention of Howard Hawks’ classic gangster picture “Scarface” was first released in 1983, critics skewered it for its overt violence, drug use, and profanity, as well as its stereotyping of Cubans. Pacino shared in his recently published memoir, “Sonny Boy,” as well as on the “WTF Podcast with Marc Maron,” that he was “surprised it had that reaction” and that it took the Black community incorporating “ Scarface ” into their image and their music for the film to receive the acclaim and acknowledgement it deserved. The Academy Award-winning actor told Maron that he was living with fellow thespian Kathleen Quinlan during production on “Scarface” and getting to come home to her after long, difficult shoot days was a “life saver.”

Get the Android app