With the possible exception of Meryl Streep or Clint Eastwood, the greatest acting legend in this year's awards race is Dustin Hoffman. For much of the past 20 years, though, he has appeared on screen only sporadically and often in cameos or bit parts that seemed beneath him. Finally, this year, at the age of 71, he returned to form in a big way in the indie "Last Chance Harvey" (opening nationwide Jan. 23, trailer).
He gives a nuanced and endearing performance opposite Emma Thompson -- a fellow two-time Oscar winner -- that already has earned him a Golden Globe nod for best actor (musical or comedy) and could conceivably sneak in for an Oscar nod in a few weeks, as well. It certainly deserves to be in the discussion.
I had the opportunity to meet and chat with Hoffman when he came to New York in mid-November. As you may recall, I wrote a short post at the time that included some audio excerpts, but it was only later, once I had transcribed and read the full interview, that I began to fully appreciate how special it was. I know he did some longer interviews with other journalists during the same press tour, but I have yet to see or hear one in which he spoke so eloquently and movingly and insightfully. I'd like to think it was because I asked good questions, but it could just as easily be the result of catching him at a good time and in a good mood. Who knows?
Regardless, I hope you'll check it out, as it provides a walk through Hollywood -- from the beginning of the second half of the 20th century through the beginning of the first half of the 21st, with insight into some of the most important films, people and cultural shifts that have occurred there during that time ...
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I’m sure everybody is always asking the "Rosebud" question — you know, "Why did it turn out the way it did for you?" In your case, what did you want to do with your life before you became an actor? I know that there were other things that interested you as a kid, so how do you feel you ended up on this path? What did it?
The truth is...
...that a piano was put in front of me when I was about 5 years old, and my lower-middle-class Jewish parents were kind of cliché in the sense they said, “You’re gonna start piano lessons and you’re gonna wind up at Carnegie Hall” [laughs]. That was that generation. And I was one of many, many Jewish kids who did not wind up in Carnegie Hall. But I had practiced classical music, and I actually studied in Los Angeles, where I grew up, at the L.A. Conservatory. And, by the time I got into junior high school and high school — my brother had been in the service and come back from Korea, and he brought back with him from Japan, for some reason, 78 records from the early '50s of the Dave Brubeck Trio. And I knew nothing of modern jazz, and that introduced me, and then I said I want to be a modern jazz pianist — which is in the film. So that’s the answer to that part of it. Up until then, I was just a failure in everything I tried to do. In fact, there was a movie I saw recently — I think an independent film — and the production company was called C-Plus Productions, and I said, “What a great name!” because, if I was lucky, I would get a C-plus. But I was convinced that I was the black sheep of the family. And acting came about because it was three credits at junior college — because I didn’t have the credits to get into regular college. And I only took the class because I was flunking out the first year and a friend of mine said, “Take acting. It’s like gym.” You know, nobody flunks gym — you get three credits. And that’s what did it. And I said, “OK, I’m gonna be an actor.” For two reasons. One is, I didn’t want to go back to school, to junior college — I knew that I would fail the first year again. And, more importantly, I think — I didn’t think I was good or bad, but it was the first time ... there was a timelessness. When I was practicing piano, there was always a clock, and I had to practice for an hour. And, with homework, I’d say, “God, Almighty! Is it only 20 minutes I’ve been studying? It feels like — ” You know? And, here, I could rehearse and it was timeless. And that was an extraordinary feeling. That you could actually do something — and just maybe strive to make a living doing it? And eight hours of rehearsal just felt like it just went by like that. I said, “Geez. Could you actually have a profession in your life that was like that?” And that’s me, Gene Hackman, Duvall — that’s the only reason any of us went into it. I don’t think we thought we were great actors. It just took care of time.
A moment ago, we were talking about how we’re both Jewish, and we have a different sort of look than your typical Hollywood star of the '50s or whatever. When you, and Barbra Streisand, and maybe a few others — but you two, in particular — came along, it redefined what a movie star could look like, I think it’s fair to say. I mean, when you were an aspiring actor, there wasn’t really somebody that you could look at and point to and say, “This is who I could be!” was there?
Well, I did look in the mirror and say, “If I looked like James Dean, I could be a star like James Dean — and I’ll never be a star because I don’t look like James Dean.” We all wanted to look like James Dean. Before that, when I was a kid, there was one Jewish movie star, and he was a very handsome man — his name was John Garfield. But he died, I think, actually as a result of the Un-American Activities [Committee] — he had a heart attack because he was named. I would credit Mike Nichols as the one who changed the look of American cinema, in that sense, because he did — and was roundly criticized for it. I finished the film ["The Graduate"] in Los Angeles. I went back to New York to start collecting unemployment checks while they were cutting it. And I didn’t know that, after they cut it, they were screening it in Los Angeles —t hey were having screenings of it — and that people were coming up to Nichols constantly and saying, “It’s such a shame that you miscast the lead because you would have had a great film here.” And they felt that after they saw it. And they were right — he did miscast it. The character’s name was Benjamin Braddock, and he was a track star, and he was like 6 feet tall in the book — he was Redford! And Redford had read for it, in fact, I think a couple of days before. And everyone thought that Nichols was committing artistic, you know, suicide by casting me in that part. And he did it. And there used to be a newspaper — I guess there still is — there was a newspaper called Backstage, and actors would read it for jobs, and it said, “Leading Men, Leading Women, Young Leading Men, Young Leading Women, Ingénues, Juveniles,” and then underneath that it would say, “Character Leading Men, Character Leading Ladies, Character Juveniles, Character Ingénues.” “Character” was a code word meaning non-Aryan. It meant Jewish, ethnic, Italian. It meant they didn’t look like what a leading lady and a leading man, or a juvenile, you know, were. And we didn’t, because there was an acceptable look. If we were gonna be in the movie or in the play, we were generally gonna be the ones who either were the villains or we were supporting the, you know, White Anglo-Saxon Protestants, if you will.
For your next role, you agreed to play a supporting part — or a character part, I guess you could say — in "Midnight Cowboy," which obviously turned out terrifically but at the time raised people’s eyebrows, with some saying, “You’re coming off of an Oscar nomination, why would that be your next move?” And I know that over the last 15 years, you’ve also played a lot of character parts, and people say, “You’re a star! Why do that rather than leading parts?” You’ve sort of blurred the line between the two, and I wonder if there’s a reason why you choose or like to do that kind of thing?
Well, probably more than one. I mean, there was a reality, I think, in what we were saying before. So suddenly I’m a leading man because "The Graduate" is a hit? I kind of had a — there was a resentment in me, and I turned down those leading parts that were sent to me. I wasn’t aware of it consciously. And then here comes "Midnight Cowboy," and there again the part that had been the only kind of part that had been open to me before — this was a character role. This guy was — actually, I think in the book he was part-Jewish, part-Italian. But these were the roles that would have been open to me before "The Graduate," and I guess I just wanted to go back to those roles that, you know, America had limited me for. So there was a kind of “get even” to it. And I think that, you know, movies serve, kind of, two purposes. Either you kind of go in there unconsciously fusing yourself and pretending you’re Robert Redford, or Brad Pitt today, you know, for two hours, identifying — “I’m the hero, I get to kiss the girl” — or you’re pretending you’re, you know, Angelina Jolie or, you know, whoever the actresses were that people identified with back in my parents' day or, you know, my day. The idea was that what was on the screen is the idealized version of all of us. And I guess what Brando did was he kind of tilted the axis of acting because, though he was a very good-looking man, he, in a sense, kind of obliterated what he looked like outside and forced us to see that underneath a handsome face you’ll find a tortured man. And I think that he started the trend where an audience would go in a theater not to see an idealized version of us all but to see us. And I never can get over the fact that when I walk down the street and I look at people, I see myself; I don’t see movie stars. You know? I mean, they’re very few and far between. I guess we have to have them. We’ve always had to have them. I mean, the Greeks had them — they were called “gods,” you know? And I guess there’s always that part of us that wants to be somehow, you know, part of the mythology of perfection, I guess. And why? I’m not sure. Because we who did not grow up with those features somehow are no less interesting.
No, I know exactly what you’re saying. And, in a way, that leads perfectly into my next question. Whenever I’ve seen you talk or read what you’ve said in interviews about “Tootsie,” I’ve gotten the sense that that one has had a pretty profound impact on you, and I wonder if it’s something to do with the fact that people have a hard time seeing behind the look of a person to really get to know them…...
"Tootsie," I think — the revelation I had was that once I developed the character, Dorothy, as well as I could, I did have the actors’ conceit of saying to my wife, “I think she’s an interesting woman.” And I did. And then I realized if I had met her at a party, I wouldn’t have gone over to her because she didn’t fulfill — physically — the requirements that I had been brainwashed to feel. You know, those are the only girls you go up to, are these, you know, these covers on magazines — or, if you couldn’t get them, which 99% of us couldn’t, then we were getting the girls that were trying to look like the covers of magazines [laughs]. You know? And I think that, yes, it takes a while to break yourself from the cultural habits that have been, you know, ingrained in you. And you suddenly realize that — I mean, Emma’s [Emma Thompson, his costar in "Last Chance Harvey"] an example of this. Emma is an extraordinarily beautiful woman but not in a traditional sense, and she has never tried to imitate that which she isn’t. I mean, she admits to her age — she just sees no reason not to — and she is who she is. And she is truly, I think, a woman’s woman. I mean, how it must feel for women to go to see this movie and to feel that they are that person on the screen, you know? They’re not looking at a Barbie doll. And you mentioned Barbra Streisand. I’m not sure Barbra Streisand — and I always thought she was beautiful — but I’m not sure Barbra Streisand would have succeeded during the time that she became a star if she hadn’t been a singer — you know, if she was just an actor.
At this point, you’ve given dozens of great performances; you’ve won two Oscars; you’re one of only a few people who have ever appeared in three movies that won the Oscar for best picture; in the same way that Brando inspired a generation of actors, including you, you’ve now inspired a generation — or two — of actors. What do you still hope to do? Why do you keep — we’re lucky that you do keep working, but what drives you with a movie like "Last Chance Harvey" to get up in the morning and keep working hard?
Well, I love working. I mean, a lot of actors say the same thing which I’m going to say, which is we keep trying to get it right! And I don’t think you’re ever — you should never, ever think of yourself as anything but a student. Because the more you do it, the more you realize what a thin line there is between sinking the basket and having it just hit the rim. It’s like — what’s his name? — Greg Louganis in the Olympics, where he had more gold medals than any other diver, and then he gets up to do that — for us that remember — that swan dive, and he hits his forehead on the edge of the board, and just a millimeter was the difference between a 1 and a 10. And I think that work is like that. So you don’t stay in it because you’re searching for the 10; you stay in it because there’s something about creative work, no matter what it is — you know, it could be, you know, farming, I mean, medicine, everything that can be looked at from a creative point of view, you know, child-rearing. I mean, I can’t think of a profession where you can’t bring your own spirit, in a sense, or your own point of view, I guess. So that’s part of it. And the other part of it is I don’t understand — I would think that if one agrees with the thesis, if that’s the right word, that we aren’t the same person from decade to decade — “Oh, my God, that’s what I was when I was in my teens,” “Oh, when I was a kid, even before my teens, I was another person,” “Oh, well, you know, when I was in my 20s, I — ,” “But in my 30s — ,” and “In my 40s — ,” and “In my 50s — ,” that you alter, and life alters you, and you alter accordingly, there’s no end to material. I think that’s one of the things that makes marriage so difficult. When people get married, they usually get married very young, and they’re two different people years later, and maybe they no longer are as attracted to or like the person that they met originally. We alter, we change. And I, kind of, have a desire to, I guess, through my work, to chronicle that. Because I couldn’t have played this part when I was in my 20s, and 30s, and 40s, and 50s. I had to feel, somehow, that I understand that the game of life is that there’s a clock on it, you know, and you don’t even get one overtime. And I think that the closer you get to that finite line that we call “mortality,” the more interesting you can be, because you’re not blocking or running away from this game that’s called “life,” you know?
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/files/2009/01/dustin-hoffman.html
Simply Dustin Hoffman
