Interview: Al Pacino and Robert De Niro on ''Heat''

BY MAL VINCENT, The Virginian-Pilot Copyright 1996, Landmark Communications Inc.

Fans were expecting the acting duel of the year.

Al Pacino and Robert De Niro, arguably the best actors of this movie generation, co-star in ``Heat,'' now playing at local theaters.

To an earlier generation, the ones to watch were Marlon Brando and Laurence Olivier. To this generation, it is Pacino and De Niro. Between them, they have won three Oscars and been nominated 14 times.

This is not the first film in which they have appeared together; the duo were in ``The Godfather, Part II'' but had no scenes together. (De Niro won an Oscar for playing Vito Corleone in a flashback to the old country. Pacino was the new generation of Corleone.

In ``Heat,'' they have two scenes together.

Pacino plays an obsessive Los Angeles cop who relentlessly pursues the cool, professional criminal played by De Niro. Critics have raved.

Searching for the ``real'' Bobby and Al, though, is about as difficult as getting Mona Lisa to laugh. It's not likely to happen.

For one of them to talk to the press is unusual. Getting the two of them together is unique. But here they are, sitting side by side, at the Essex House Hotel, just off Central Park in New York.

``We almost worked together before this,'' Pacino contributes, ``but the project didn't work out. Finding something is not so easy.''

``Are the two of you very competitive?'' someone asks.

``Well, we were competitive back at the very beginning,'' Pacino says, as De Niro merely squirms. ``We were both up for the lead in `Panic in Needle Park.' I met Robert on 14th Street once. I had seen him in `The Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight,' `The Wedding Party' and `The Pope of Greenwich Village.' ''

Pacino is only partly accurate. ``Panic in Needle Park'' was De Niro's movie debut in 1971, but he was not in ``The Pope of Greenwich Village.''

Rumors are that the potential acting duel in ``Heat'' was taken seriously by the two of them and that, in reality, they can't stand each other. They refused to do separate interviews to promote the movie. The more imaginative among the press corps reason that they would only speak together for fear of what either might say separately. This way, there can be no misquoting what one said about the other.

In an acting duel, the two would be about evenly matched. Pacino has been nominated for the Oscar eight times. In the best-actor category, he was nominated for ``Serpico,'' ``Dog Day Afternoon,'' ``The Godfather, Part II,'' and ``. . . And Justice for All.'' He finally won the award for ``Scent of a Woman.'' In the supporting-actor category, he was nominated for ``The Godfather,'' ``Dick Tracy'' and ``Glengarry Glen Ross.''

De Niro has won two Oscars, for ``Raging Bull'' (best actor) and ``The Godfather, Part II'' (best supporting actor). He also received nominations for ``Taxi Driver'' (in which he asked the world, ``Are you talking to me?''), ``The Deer Hunter,'' ``Awakenings'' and ``Cape Fear.'' He first attracted attention as a dying baseball player in 1973's ``Bang the Drum Slowly.''

But if you're asking them to come out of their corners, punching or otherwise, you can forget it.

``Are the two of you close?'' a relentless reporter asks.

``We know each other's minds,'' Pacino says. ``We have shared some things that are personal to us, such as our roles. I know Bobby through his roles. But, then, I don't think we actually talked about the actual work of actors.''

De Niro is even more succinct in explaining ``Heat'': ``Al did his story. I did mine.''

Directed by Michael Mann (``Last of the Mohicans'' and TV's ``Miami Vice'') the film is actually two films, about the pursued and the pursuer.

``Acting is a compromise,'' De Niro said. ``You work through it separately.''

``In Bob's best work,'' Pacino chimed in, ``I was struck by his subtlety and nuance.''

In ``Heat,'' it is De Niro who is the quiet one -- understated and subtle -- while Pacino takes a showier and louder stance. It is the reverse of their usual roles.

Let's try another question: ``If the two of you could have switched roles, would you have?''

Pacino answers: ``No, I would not have done the other role -- the role of the criminal. I liked the role of the cop.''

De Niro explains: ``I was in this before Al. I sent him the script and suggested he do it. I think both roles are well written. If I had been offered the other role, I would have done it.''

The next question is inevitable: ``But which one is the audience supposed to root for? One is a criminal, but the other is an unlikable kind of cop -- relentless and not giving. He gives up his personal life for the job. Who, really, is the good guy in this movie?''

Pacino, who represents the law in the plot, says: ``I think the audience almost always pulls for the criminal, don't you? It's somehow natural that audiences want to see people get away with things. When I was a kid in the Bronx, we played robbers and robbers, not cops and robbers.''

Did the two rehearse much for their two scenes together?

Pacino: ``We read the words, but we didn't rehearse. The scene has to be worked out on the set.''

Director Mann added that, with these two superstars, ``the actual filming is very liberating. One never knows how it will work out. We start from one point and go . . . wherever.''

And so it goes. Thrust and parry. Parry and thrust. An eager press thwarted by two ultra-private stars.

The verdict: Pacino is outgoing and might, conceivably, grant a passable interview, but as for De Niro, how could an actor this good be so incoherent and uncommunicative in real life? Does he really need a script that badly? Or is he merely shy? Or contrary?

Jon Voight, who co-stars in ``Heat,'' shed light on the subjects, saying, ``They are not public people. ``They both have a vision. Their talent is, as much as anything else, in choosing roles. Bob goes toward it quietly. You never know what he's thinking. Al seems to arrive with no preparation at all. He talks about his shoes. He talks about the weather. Then he does the scene and he has a clear view of exactly where he's going. It's uncanny.''

Voight, who won his own Oscar for ``Coming Home,'' added: ``Bobby, on the other hand, doesn't seem to think a lot. He's very understructured, seemingly. Al is like a dog getting a scent. He smells it out. He comes in and plays with a scene.

``They really love each other, yet they don't mind hitting each other as hard as they can. They're looking for the best out of their performance.''