A character like Phil Spector must make quite an impression on all who meet him, right? Well, maybe not on Al Pacino, who plays the record-producer-turned-convicted-murderer in a new HBO movie.

“On the Internet there’s a picture of me and Phil about 20 years ago," Pacino told reporters Friday afternoon at the TV press tour in Pasadena. "I didn’t even know him. Someone said, 'There’s you and Phil Spector.' And I said, 'You mean I met him?'”

A more memorable meeting of the two might come from "Phil Spector," HBO's retelling of Spector's decline and eventual conviction in the 2003 killing of actress Lana Clarkson. The film is set for a premiere this spring.

Written and directed by playwright and frequent Pacino collaborator David Mamet, the HBO movie tackles the subject from the point of view of Spector's defense attorney, Linda Kenney Baden (Helen Mirren).

Mirren told reporters that Spector's bizarre later life - he was said to have repeatedly threatened musicians with guns and later barricaded himself inside his Alhambra mansion - took on a surreal quality during filming.

"The challenge was finding the tone in this piece," Mirren said. "It was like a strange dream that you’re having. ... He was obviously a schizophrenic character with these extremes battling within him.”