September 15th, 2011
Santino sends a link to a great AV Club interview with Hank Azaria, which contains this fantastic nugget about Heat:
AVC: How was Pacino to work with?
HA: Pacino was awesome. Michael Mann does like to shoot a lot of takes—if you’re going to shoot it once, you’re going to shoot it about 25 times—and Al really likes to play around. But I was so young and naïve then that I was silly enough to ask Michael Mann if, when Al was improvising, I could sort of improvise back and start riffing. And Michael Mann thought about it for a minute, then said, “Nah, just say what’s on the page.” I mean, now, of course, as a more experienced actor, I would just not ask. It’s easier to ask forgiveness than permission, you know? I’d just start riffing right back at Al. But I asked Michael and he said no, so I’d be doing the same exact thing on every take while Al was improvising all these brilliant things. It probably frustrated Al, looking back on it. It was probably annoying to him.
But one thing that did make it into the movie that was extemporaneous was… I don’t know if you remember, but I say something like, “I don’t know why I got mixed up with this stupid broad,” and he says [Does a loud, spot-on Pacino impression.] “’Cause she’s got a great ass!” He just screams it. And that was the line, but Al kind of yelled it for the first time, and he did it so completely out of nowhere that it scared me. So much so that I just went, “Jesus!” Not in character, just as Hank. I got frightened, and I went, “Jesus!” And then Al improvised [As Pacino.] “I’m sorry. Something happens to me when I think about a woman’s ass.” Or whatever it is that he said. And that actually made it into the movie! Michael Mann told me not to improvise, and the one line that I said that wasn’t scripted made it in there because… I don’t know, I guess because it was a good moment. Because I was scared of Al. [Laughs.]
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I love Heat. The entire movie. I think its an underrated movie.
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I love that movie. It’s bloated but great.
Please note, however, that the Blu Ray is terrible. There are actually lines missing.
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Last year I finally got my hands on this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L.A._Takedown
It’s a must watch for true fans of Heat.
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I guess the old Yiddish proverb applies here: “Mann plans; G-d laughs.”
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Hank Azaria. Al Pacino. The Simpsons.
AVC: The Simpsons (1989-present)—“Moe Szyslak,” “Chief Wiggum,” “Apu,” “Comic Book Guy,” “Carl Carlson,” “Cletus,” “Lou,” “Professor Frink,” “Snake,” “Kirk Van Houten,” “Superintendent Chalmers,” “Bumblebee Man,” “Dr. Nick Riviera,” and dozens more
HA: It was one of those things where I walked into a little room, and I hadn’t read a script. They just handed me sides and said, “This guy’s a bartender. What would be a voice you’d do for him?” And at the time, I was doing a play in Hollywood where I was playing a drug dealer, and I was doing sort of a bad Al Pacino impression from Dog Day Afternoon. [Begins impression.] Kind of talking like this, you know. “What’s happening? I’m dyin’ here! Everybody’s comin’ down on me!” So I did that voice, and they’re, like, “That voice is interesting, but we want it to be gravelly, though. Like, raspy.” So I said… [Moe voice.] “Well, I can make it sound raspy.” And that was Moe. And then… Literally, that was for Matt Groening and Sam Simon, and they just said, “Okay, cool, man,” and they had me walk over and just record it. It wasn’t even, like, “Okay, you have the job,” or that there was a callback or anything. It was, “Great, good, c’mere…” And I walked over to the recording booth and recorded it, and that was it.
Galley Wife September 15, 2011 at 12:54 pm
Awesome. Let’s re-watch; it’s been ages.