Los Angeles, Sept. 8.- Veteran Hollywood actors Robert De Niro and Al Pacino revealed secrets of filming Heat, the 1995 classic Michael Mann film, on Wednesday night, during a tribute organized by the Hollywood Academy and moderated by British filmmaker Christopher Nolan, who called the film a ‘masterpiece’ and an ‘American classic’.

The greatest revelation of the evening came from Pacino, who finally admitted that his character, Los Angeles police detective Vincent Hannah, is high on cocaine.

“I don’t think I’ve ever said it out loud,” said Pacino at the Academy’s Samuel Goldwyn Theater.

“But I’ve always wanted to say it, just so you know where some of the behavior comes from,” he added.

De Niro said the famous scene between Pacino’s character and his character, professional thief Neil McCauley, in the now-defunct restaurant Kate Mantillini in Beverly Hills, was shot at 1 am and took around 20 shots to complete.

In the discussion that followed the film’s screening, Nolan called Heat one of the most influential films of his career and that of many of his contemporaries, especially for its classic cinematography and the bold techniques pioneered by Mann.

De Niro, Pacino and Mann were later joined on stage by actors Amy Brenneman, Val Kilmer, Diane Venora and Mykelti Williamson, producers Pieter Jan Brugge and Art Linson, cinematographer Dante Spinotti, editor William Goldenberg and sound mixer Andy Nelson.

Mann said he based the script on the true story of criminal Neil McCauley, who was killed in 1963 by his friend, the police detective Charlie Adamson.

The two men, despite being on opposite sides of the law, admired and respected each other for being dedicated to their respective professions.

“They had the kind of intimacy only strangers can have,” said Mann.

Heat had brought together the two Hollywood stalwarts for the first time after The Godfather: Part II (1974), in which Pacino played Michael Corleone, and De Niro his father, Vito Corleone.

After Heat, De Niro and Pacino had worked together again in Righteous Kill (2008) and there are rumors that Martin Scorsese is set to reunite them in a gangster film, The Irishman.

—Antonio Martin Guirado, EFE