Dustin Hoffman says the movie that made him a star was, behind the scenes, brutal. In a New Yorkers essay adapted from his upcoming memoir, the 89-year-old actor writes that filming the 1967 film The graduate It was “a terrible experience” that intensified his insecurity as a Jewish actor cast as “the ultimate Wasp,” Ben Braddock. He remembers spending hours in the makeup chair while director Mike Nichols tried to alter his appearance, leading Hoffman to think, “They’re trying to get the Jew out of my face.”
Hoffman says Nichols was “wonderful” during rehearsals but became “a totally different person” once filming began. He says that “a certain sadism seemed to seep in”, citing 27 unused takes of Katharine Ross slapping him and an underwater scene that left him with a perforated eardrum. “All this time, I felt that Mike was angry with me, either because I was doing something wrong or because he had realized what everyone already knew, which was that he had miscast the lead role in his film,” he writes. He now sees the film as a kind of self-portrait of Nichols, with himself as a “stand-in” for Nichols’ self-loathing, according to the Tutor. His memoirs, Look at mearrives November 10.
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