Michael Mann Cut A Scene From ‘Heat’ Involving Al Pacino, Cocaine, And A Dagger Because It Sent ‘Too Strong A Message’
Bigger does not always equal better when it comes to movie star performances. Sometimes you get Nicolas Cage transcending to a higher plane of bugged-out existence in Face/Off, other times you’re left with whatever the hell Jared Leto was doing in House of Gucci. Using this metric, Al Pacino’s performance in Heat is more Cage than Leto, and it’s one of the reasons why the 1995 film is a masterpiece. But Pacino almost went even bigger.
Heat director Michael Mann told Variety that he shot a scene of Pacino snorting coke off a dagger, but it was cut for sending “too strong a message.” Too powerful, even.
“Al’s best takes are always five, six or seven,” Mann said. “It’s never the first two. He’s experimenting around, and then after five, six or seven, maybe it’s a small change. After that, he would deliver a take that was fantastic.” He also told an amusing story about the famous “great ass” scene.
Once they had a good take in the can, he’d ask Mann if he could do “a wild one.” Mann always said yes. Sometimes it was brilliant, sometimes it was terrible. Often it was hilarious. Alas, this was Azaria’s first day on set. “I neglected to tell him that we had a habit of doing this,” says Mann. “Al just flipped this guy up and down and cut loose, and that look of shock and amazement on Azaria’s face is because we’re going completely off the script into something totally wild.”
Maybe the cocaine dagger scene can be resurrected for Heat 2.
(Via Variety)