Dustin Hoffman had a “terrible” time filming his iconic 1967 film “The Graduate.”
In an excerpt from his upcoming memoir, “Look at Me,” obtained by the New Yorker, the Golden Globe winner described “often (feeling) like he was about to be fired” while working with director Mike Nichols.
Noting that Nichols seemed to become “a totally different person” once filming began, Hoffman said the shift from “wonderful” to critical was “shocking” and “unsettling.”
He was “in a state of constant anxiety.”
He recalls: “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.”
Hoffman even heard from theater director Ulu Grosbard, after a visit to the set, that Nichols regretted “very much” hiring the actor to play Benjamin Braddock.
At the time, Hoffman felt like he never wanted to “make another movie for the rest of (his) life.”
He described Nichols’ harsh grades, going as far as criticism of his eyebrows and “too thick neck.”
Hoffman recalls: “His mood would change dramatically. I don’t remember the scene, but I’ll never forget Mike’s acidic voice saying to me, after one take, ‘What were you?’ TO DO?’ …Do the opposite of that.’”
He recalls doing other scenes that left him “devastated with exhaustion and dehydration.”
The film – which depicts Braddock’s affair with family friend Mrs Robinson, played by Anne Bancroft – became a classic, with Nichols winning the 1968 Best Director Oscar.
Hoffman earned the first of seven Academy Award nominations for the role, as well as a Golden Globe win.
Nichols died in 2014 at the age of 83, and in his account, Hoffman dubbed “The Graduate” a “self-portrait” of the EGOT winner’s life.
He called the project a “replacement…to absorb Mike’s disgust,” explaining that Nichols himself once said it was his “unconscious mind that made this movie.”
“Look at Me” hits shelves November 10.
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