Robert De Niro told Pacino to Take Scarface — Or He Would

Robert De Niro said in a joint interview with Pacino for GQ in 2019, around the time The Irishman was released, that he remembered urging Pacino to make Scarface with Brian De Palma – which Pacino ultimately did. “I said, if you don’t do it, I’m gonna do it,”

De Niro recalled saying. Pacino, meanwhile, says he remembers that De Niro and Scorsese were “playing with the idea” of a Scarface movie. 

Three years after Pacino played fictional gangster Tony Montana in 1983’s Scarface, De Niro played the original Scarface, Al Pacino, in 1987’s The Untouchables.

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Main image: Al Pacino in Bobby Deerfield (1977) and Robert De Niro in Taxi Driver (1976). Both from Columbia Pictures.