Released in 1997, “Donnie Brasco” was solidly carried by the duo Al Pacino and Johnny Depp. The opportunity for the latter to tour with one of his childhood idols. An experience he dreaded, until he found an idea to break the ice…
1978, Brooklyn. In a café, Lefty Ruggiero, a somewhat naive and still broke member of a clan of the New York mafia, accosts a jeweler named Donnie Brasco to sell him a ring. When the latter maintains that she is fake, Lefty immediately wants to be reimbursed. Donnie then accompanies him to the salesman and beats him up so convincingly that he gets his Porsche in exchange. Impressed, Lefty sponsors him to enter the industry, thus infiltrating an FBI agent without his knowledge…
Nervous thriller released in 1997 signed by Mike Newell, firmly carried by the duo Al Pacino and Johnny Depp, Donnie Brasco is based on the true story of Joseph D. Pistone, FBI agent (played on screen by Depp) who s infiltrated for six years in the mafia at the end of the 1970s and obtained more than a hundred arrests.
A great admirer of Pacino and intimidated by the idea of filming with one of his cinema idols, Johnny Depp had the idea to break the ice with his partner in a way, say, singular and facetious, from their first shooting day. The anecdote was told in an interview at the time, given by Depp to the Australian daily Sun Herald.
In a sequence where the two find themselves in a car, in which Lefty Ruggiero (Pacino) discusses the possibility of leaving the Mafia, enormous flatulence rings out from the side of Johnny Depp, who hastens to apologize: “I’m terribly sorry, terribly sorry!” launches the actor. Before Newell throws a “Cut!” and logically asks to return the sequence, inevitably wasted.
Second take, same scenario. Depp lets out enormous flatulence. Pacino, annoyed, reflexively opens the car window, while shooting his partner with his eyes. Never two without three: at the third flatulence of Depp, Pacino loses patience and gets angry.
This is where the interpreter of Joseph D. Pistone pulls out a whoopee cushion on which he was sitting. Pacino then bursts out laughing. Newell, who was in on the secret, will explain that this was Depp’s way of breaking the ice between him and one of his childhood idols. Rather successful bet: the chemistry between the two will work just as well in front of as behind the camera.