Moderator Booed At ‘Scarface’ Reunion After Asking Michelle Pfeiffer About Her Weight

Al Pacino, Michelle Pfeiffer, Steven Bauer, and director Brian De Palma all reunited on stage for the 35th anniversary of Scarface at the Tribeca Film Festival last night, where they participated in a panel to discuss the film and its impact. Moderator Jesse Kornbluth didn’t direct a question at Pfeiffer until about 15 minutes into the conversation, and when he did, things quickly went south.

“Michelle, as the father of a daughter, I’m concerned with body image,” Kornbluth began. “The preparation for this film – what did you weigh?”

The question was met almost immediately with a chorus of boos and jeers at Kornbluth while Pfeiffer took in the question, looking incredulous. “Why do you need to know?!” yelled one audience member. In the video below, another can be heard telling Pfeiffer she doesn’t “have to answer that” while others continue to call out the moderator.

Kornbluth tried to defend himself, telling the audience that “this is not the question you think it is” – but he never followed up with anything that might have salvaged the incredibly awkward exchange.

“Well, okay,” Pfeiffer began, clearly taken aback. “I was playing a cocaine addict.”

“To my point,” Kornbluth replied. (Though the “point” to which he was referring to remains unclear).

Pfeiffer continued, discussing the grueling physical nature of the shoot for her:

“..That was part of the physicality of the part, which you have to consider. The movie was only supposed to be, what? A three-month, four-month [shoot]? Of course, I tried to time it so that as the movie went on, I became thinner and thinner and more emaciated. The problem was the movie went six months. I was starving by the end of it because the one scene that was the end of the film where I needed to be my thinnest, it was [pushed to the] next week and then it was the next week and then it was the next week. I literally had members of the crew bringing me bagels because they were all worried about me and how thin I was getting. I think I was living on tomato soup and Marlboros.”

Pfeiffer was later afforded the opportunity to discuss what she learned about acting from working with Pacino, as well as what playing Elvira still means to her after all these years. While the panel revealed some interesting anecdotes, Kornbluth’s tone-deaf question undoubtedly stuck out as an unfortunate highlight of the evening – and audience members took to Twitter to call out the moderator.

Three-time Oscar nominee Michelle Pfeiffer is currently receiving rave reviews for her performance in dark drama Where is Kyra?.