Dustin Hoffman

Dustin Hoffman
Dustin Hoffman in 1968
Born	Dustin Lee Hoffman (1937-08-08) August 8, 1937 Los Angeles, California, U.S.
Occupation(s)	Actor, film director
Years active	1960–present
Spouse(s)	Anne Byrne (1969–80) Lisa Hoffman (1980–present)
Children	6, including Jake Hoffman

Dustin Lee Hoffman (born August 8, 1937) is an American actor and director with a career in film, television, and theatre since 1960. He has been known for his versatile portrayals of antiheroes and vulnerable characters. He won the Academy Award for Best Actor in 1980 (for Kramer vs. Kramer) and 1989 (for Rain Man).

He first drew critical praise for starring in the play Eh?, for which he won a Theatre World Award and a Drama Desk Award. This was soon followed by his breakthrough 1967 film role as Benjamin Braddock, the title character, in The Graduate. Since then, Hoffman's career has largely been focused on cinema, with sporadic returns to television and the stage. His subsequent notable films include Midnight Cowboy, Little Big Man, Straw Dogs, Papillon, Lenny, Marathon Man, All the President's Men, Kramer vs. Kramer, Tootsie, Rain Man, Hook and Wag the Dog.

Aside from his two Academy award wins, Hoffman has been nominated for seven Academy Awards, plus thirteen Golden Globes, winning six (including an honorary one) and has won four BAFTAs, three Drama Desk Awards, a Genie Award, and an Emmy Award. Hoffman received the AFI Life Achievement Award in 1999, and the Kennedy Center Honors in 2012. Hoffman made his directorial debut in 2012, with Quartet.

Early life

Hoffman was born on August 8, 1937 in Los Angeles, the second son of Lillian (née Gold; 1909-1981) and Harry Hoffman (1908-1988). His father worked as a prop supervisor (set decorator) at Columbia Pictures before becoming a furniture salesman. Hoffman was named after stage and silent screen actor Dustin Farnum. His older brother, Ronald, is a lawyer and economist. Hoffman is Jewish, from an Ashkenazi family of immigrants from Ukraine, Poland, and Romania (the family's surname was spelled "Goikhman" in the Russian Empire). His upbringing was non-religious; he has said, "I don’t have any memory of celebrating holidays growing up that were Jewish", and that he had "realized" he was Jewish at around age 10. He graduated from Los Angeles High School in 1955 and enrolled at Santa Monica College with the intention of studying medicine. Hoffman left after a year to join the Pasadena Playhouse, although when he told his family about his career goal, his Aunt Pearl warned him "You can't be an actor. You are not good-looking enough." He also took classes at the Neighborhood Playhouse in New York City.

Career

Early work

Hoffman initially hoped to become a classical pianist, having studied piano during much of his youth and in college. While at Santa Monica College, he also took an acting class, which he assumed would be easy, and "caught the acting bug." He recalls: "I just was not gifted in music. I did not have an ear." Now an aspiring actor, he spent the next ten years doing odd jobs, being unemployed, and struggling to get any available acting roles.

His first acting role was at the Pasadena Playhouse, alongside future Academy Award-winner, Gene Hackman. After two years there, Hackman headed for New York City, with Hoffman soon following. Hoffman, Hackman and Robert Duvall lived together in the 1960s, all three of them focused on finding acting jobs. Hackman remembers, "The idea that any of us would do well in films simply didn't occur to us. We just wanted to work." During this period, Hoffman got occasional television bit parts, including commercials but, needing income, he briefly left acting to teach.

In 1960, Hoffman was cast in a role in an Off-Broadway production and followed with a walk-on role in a Broadway production in 1961. Hoffman then studied at Actors Studio and became a dedicated method actor. Sidney W. Pink, a producer and 3D-movie pioneer, discovered him in one of his off-Broadway roles and cast him in Madigan's Millions. Through the early and mid-1960s, Hoffman made appearances in television shows and movies, including Naked City, The Defenders and Hallmark Hall of Fame. His first critical success was in the play Eh?, by Henry Livings, which had its US premiere at the Circle in the Square Downtown on October 16, 1966.

Hoffman made his film debut in The Tiger Makes Out in 1967, alongside Eli Wallach. In 1967, immediately after wrapping up principal filming on The Tiger Makes Out, Hoffman flew from New York City to Fargo, North Dakota, where he directed productions of William Gibson's Two for the Seesaw and William Saroyan's The Time of Your Life for the Fargo-Moorhead Community Theatre. The $1,000 he received for the eight-week contract was all he had to hold him over until the funds from the movie materialized.

1960s:  The Graduate, Midnight Cowboy, John and Mary

In 1967, director Mike Nichols cast Hoffman in The Graduate (1967), his first major role, for which he received an Academy Award nomination. Hoffman played the character of Benjamin Braddock, who returns to his wealthy parents' home in California after graduating from college. Confused about what to do with his life, he is seduced into having an affair with Mrs. Robinson, an alcoholic and a neurotic, and the wife of his father's business partner.

Hoffman in 1968

Although Life magazine joked that "if Dustin Hoffman's face were his fortune, he'd be committed to a life of poverty", The Graduate was a gigantic box-office hit for Embassy Pictures, making Hoffman a major new star at the same time. The film received near-unanimous good reviews. Time magazine called Hoffman "a symbol of youth" who represented "a new breed of actors." The film's screenwriter, Buck Henry, notes that Hoffman's character made conventional good looks no longer necessary on screen:

A whole generation changed its idea of what guys should look like. . . I think Dustin's physical being brought a sort of social and visual change, in the same way people first thought of Bogart. They called him ugly.

Hoffman biographer Jeff Lenburg adds that "newspapers across the country were deluged with thousands of letters from fans," with one example published in the New York Times: "I identified with Ben...I thought of him as a spiritual brother. He was confused about his future and about his place in the world, as I am. It's a film one digs, rather than understands intellectually."

Turner Classic Movies critic Rob Nixon notes that Hoffman represented "a new generation of actors." He credits Hoffman with breaking "the mold of the traditional movie star and brought to their roles a new candor, ethnicity, and eagerness to dive deep into complex, even unlikable characters." Nixon expands on the significance of the film to Hoffman's career: "In The Graduate, he created a lasting resonance as Ben Braddock that made him an overnight sensation and set him on the road to becoming one of our biggest stars and most respected actors."

Hoffman, however, mostly credits director Mike Nichols for taking a great risk in giving him, a relative unknown, the starring role: "I don't know of another instance of a director at the height of his powers who would take a chance and cast someone like me in that part. It took tremendous courage."

Critic Sam Kashner observed strong similarities between Hoffman's character and that of Nichols when he previously acted with Elaine May in the comedy team of Nichols and May. "Just close your eyes and you'll hear a Mike Nichols—Elaine May routine in any number of scenes." Buck Henry also noticed that "Dustin picked up all these Nichols habits, which he used in the character. Those little noises he makes are straight from Mike," he says.

After completing The Graduate, Hoffman turned down most of the film roles offered to him, preferring to go back to New York and continue performing in live theater. He returned to Broadway to appear in the title role of the musical, Jimmy Shine. Hoffman won a Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Performance.

I was a theater person. That's how my friends were, too, Gene Hackman and Bobby Duvall. I wasn't going to be a movie star. I wasn't going to sell out. We wanted to be really good actors. I told them, 'I'm going out to make this movie. Don't worry, I'm coming right back.'

He was then offered the lead in Midnight Cowboy (1969), which he accepted partly to prove many critics were wrong about his acting range and the variety of characters he could portray. As author and critic Peter Biskind explains, "it was the very contrast between his preppy character in The Graduate, and Ratso Rizzo" that appealed to Hoffman. "I had become troubled," recalls Hoffman, "by the reviews that I read of The Graduate, that I was not a character actor, which I like to think of myself as. It hurt me. Some of the stuff in the press was brutal." Critics assumed that director Mike Nichols got lucky by finding a typical actor with average acting ability to play the part of Benjamin Braddock.

John Schlesinger, who would direct Midnight Cowboy and was seeking lead actors, held that same impression. Hoffman's performance as a button-down college graduate and track star was so convincing to Schlesinger, "he seemed unable to comprehend the fact that he was acting," notes Biskind. To help the director, whom he had never met, overcome that false impression, Hoffman met him in Times Square dressed as a homeless person, wearing a dirty raincoat, his hair slicked back and with an unshaven face. Schlesinger was sold, admitting, "I've only seen you in the context of The Graduate, but you'll do quite well."

Midnight Cowboy premiered in theaters across the United States in May 1969. For his acting, Hoffman received his second Oscar nomination and the film won Best Picture. In 1994, the film was deemed "culturally, historically or aesthetically significant" by the Library of Congress and selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry. Biskind considers Hoffman's acting a major accomplishment:

Midnight Cowboy makes us a gift of one of the landmark performances of movie history: Dustin Hoffman's Ratso Rizzo, with Jon Voight's Joe Buck a close second. From a cesspool of dark, foul, even taboo material, . . . it rescues a true humanism that need not hide its name.

Also in 1969, Hoffman co-starred with Mia Farrow in John and Mary. He received a 1970 BAFTA Award as Best Actor, although the film received mixed reviews. He was also nominated for a Golden Globe Award as Best Actor.

1970s:  Lenny, All the President's Men, Marathon Man, Kramer vs. Kramer

This was followed by his role in Little Big Man (1970), where Jack Crabb, his character, ages from teenager to a 121-year-old man. The film was widely praised by critics, but was overlooked for an award except for a supporting nomination for Chief Dan George. Hoffman continued to appear in major films over the next few years. Who Is Harry Kellerman and Why Is He Saying Those Terrible Things About Me? (1971), Straw Dogs (also 1971), and Papillon (1973).

Hoffman next starred in Lenny (1974), for which he was again nominated for Best Actor. Lenny was based on the life of stand-up comedian, Lenny Bruce, who died at age 40, and was notable for his open, free-style and critical form of comedy which integrated politics, religion, sex, and vulgarity. Expectations were high that Hoffman would win an Oscar for his portrayal, especially after his similar role in Midnight Cowboy. Film critic Katharine Lowry speculates that director Bob Fosse "never gave him a chance" to go far enough into developing the character. "We never understand what, besides the drugs he injected, made him tick like a time bomb," she says.

Hoffman on the set of Lenny (1974)

However, notes author Paul Gardner, "directing Lenny, his most ambitious project, exhausted Fosse emotionally and physically. It turned his life inside out," with shooting days often lasting 10 to 12 hours:"

The Lenny Bruce project, based on Julian Barry's play, had gone through two studios and three scripts, and was a problem child, like Lenny himself. But Fosse wanted to do it, and he wanted Dustin Hoffman.

Hoffman initially turned the part down: "I didn't think the script was strong enough and I wasn't sure I was the one to play the role." While considering the part, he read Lenny Bruce's autobiography and looked at films with Bruce performing stand-up to live audiences. "I began to feel an affinity with him, a realization that there was a lot of Lenny Bruce in me. My wife felt it too." "I realized that I'd have to make use of my own spontaneity, because he was so spontaneous. And I admired his guts. . . . That intimacy is what an actor tries to get. . . . It occurred to me that if I had known him, I would have wanted us to be friends. . . . and he was a provocateur, and I love to provoke." Movie critic Judith Crist gave Hoffman credit for the ultimate success of the film:

What is important is that Bruce's routines are so artfully reconstructed, the juice of his creativity so carefully strained, that the claim to genius is justified. And for that Dustin Hoffman deserves full credit, vanishing into the Bruce persona to simply stunning effectiveness, . . . Hoffman captures the restlessness, the velocity of a man's mouth straining to keep pace with a jet-propelled intelligence . . . "

Lenny was nominated for six Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best Cinematography.

All the President's Men (1976) was made less than two years after the Watergate scandal, and starred Hoffman and Robert Redford as the real life journalists, Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward, respectively. Based on actual events, Hoffman and Redford play Washington Post reporters who uncover a break-in at the Watergate Hotel and end up investigating a political scandal that reaches all the way to the presidency. The film, as earlier ones, had Hoffman take on a dramatically different character than his previous one (as Lenny Bruce). Author James Morrison compares the two roles: "As Lenny Bruce in Lenny (1974), Hoffman plays a martyr to the cause of establishment oppression, while in All the President's Men, he plays a reporter exposing presidential malfeasance."

with Bette Midler on Bette Midler TV Special (1977)

Vincent Canby of the New York Times described the film as "a spellbinding detective story." "The strength of the movie", he added, was "the virtually day-to-day record of the way Bernstein and Woodward conducted their investigations." The characters portrayed by Hoffman and Redford shared the rank of No. 27 Hero on AFI's 100 Years... 100 Heroes and Villains list, while Entertainment Weekly ranked All the President's Men as one of the 25 "Powerful Political Thrillers".

Hoffman next starred in Marathon Man (1976), a film based on William Goldman's novel of the same name, opposite Laurence Olivier and Roy Scheider. Its director, John Schlesinger also directed Hoffman in Midnight Cowboy in 1969. Described as "Schlesinger's thriller," by author Gene D. Phillips, Hoffman plays the hero, Babe Levy, a part-time long-distance runner and graduate student, who suddenly finds himself being pursued by a fugitive Nazi. To put himself in the mindset of someone under severe emotional distress, rather than simply acting, Hoffman did not sleep for days at a time and let his body become disheveled and unhealthy.

Goldman describes his inspiration for the novel: "What if someone close to you was something totally different from what you thought? In the story, Hoffman thinks his brother (Roy Scheider) is a businessman where the reality is that the man is a spy, who has been involved with the Nazi, Szell." However, Hoffman remembers a serious disagreement he had with Goldman, who also wrote the screenplay, about how the story ends:

I was called on, as the character, to fire point-blank at the Laurence Olivier character, Dr. Szell, and kill him in that last scene. And I said that I couldn't do it. Goldman was quite upset about it, because first of all, how dare I? He wrote the book. "Your job isn't to rewrite — your job is to play it as written." . . . it got nasty. I said, "Go hire someone else."
I remember Goldman saying: "Why can't you do this? Are you such a Jew?" I said, "No, but I won't play a Jew who cold-bloodedly kills another human being." . . . And that's important to me, that I didn't shoot him in the end. Being a Jew is not losing your humanity and not losing your soul.

Hoffman's next roles were less successful. He opted out of directing Straight Time (1978), but starred as a thief. His next film, Michael Apted's Agatha (1979), was with Vanessa Redgrave as Agatha Christie.

Hoffman next starred in Kramer vs. Kramer (1979) co-starring Meryl Streep and directed by Robert Benton. The film tells the story of a married couple's divorce and its impact on everyone involved, including the couple's young son. Hoffman won his first Academy Award, and the film also received the Best Picture honor, plus the awards for Best Supporting Actress (Streep) and Best Director.

The film required Hoffman to change his attitude, from being a "desensitized advertising art director" into becoming a "responsive and concerned daddy" after his wife (Streep) walks out on him and their six-year-old son, Billy. Hoffman, during the making of the movie, was also going through his own divorce after a ten-year first marriage. Hoffman has said, "Giving myself permission not only to be present but to be a father was a kind of epiphany for me at that time, that I could get to through my work. . . . I got closer to being a father by playing a father. That's very painful to say." The role also reminded him of his own love of children in general:

Children are more interesting than anything. I walk my younger child to school every day and I don't like leaving the school. I would like to sit down on those little chairs, at those little tables, and play. And a child's love is like a drug. To have a child throw his arms about you—it's instant stoned. People talk about the rush heroin gives you: I would say children give you that rush.

Benton's directing has been praised by Hoffman, who credits him for inspiring the emotional level supporting many scenes: "Perfect directors make you emotional. On Kramer vs. Kramer, Robert Benton made me emotional. He was pulling so hard for me. When I didn't think I could do a scene again I'd say, "I can't give it to you, I haven't got it." Then he'd just get this look on his face and roll the camera and I'd say, "Okay, this is yours." That's what he made you want to do for him—to give him one."

1980s:  Tootsie, Death of a Salesman, Rain Man, Family Business

in Death of a Salesman (1985)

In Tootsie (1982), Hoffman portrays Michael Dorsey, a struggling actor who finds himself dressing up as a woman to land a role on a soap opera. His co-star was Jessica Lange. Tootsie earned ten Academy Award nominations, including Hoffman's fifth nomination.

Under direction by Sydney Pollack, Hoffman's role demanded "a steady bombardment of opposites—edgy then funny, romantic then realistic, soft then quivering." To film critic David Denby, Hoffman's character "embodies vulnerability and drive in perfect proportion. He has the knack of making everything he does seem perilous, and so audiences feel protective of him and root for him." Hoffman's acting was made more difficult than necessary, however, as he was not given the rehearsal time Pollock promised:

I like to be very prepared, and I feel that the success or failure of a film is many times determined before you start principal photography. I wanted rehearsal very much. I was promised two weeks and was grieved that I didn't get it. We also followed the risky course of starting to shoot with a screenplay that wasn't completed.

In 1984, Hoffman starred as Willy Loman in the Broadway revival of Arthur Miller's play, Death of a Salesman He reprised his role in a TV movie of the same name, for which he won the 1985 Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor along with a Golden Globe.

Hoffman first read the play at age 16, but today considers the story much like his own: "It was a blueprint of my family. I was the loser, the flunky, and my brother, a high-school varsity football player, was Biff." Author Marie Brenner notes that Hoffman "has been obsessed with the play" throughout his career: "For years he has wanted to be Willy Loman; when he discovered that Arthur Miller was his neighbor in Connecticut, they began to talk about it in earnest." For Hoffman, the story also left a deep emotional impact from the time he first read it:

I read that play, and I was just destroyed by it. It was like finding out something terrible about my family. I just shook. I felt like my family's privacy had been invaded. I couldn't even talk about it for weeks.

Hoffman rehearsed for three weeks with the play's original star, Lee J. Cobb, and remembers seeing his stage performance: "I'll never forget that period in my life. It was so vivid, so intense, watching Lee J. Cobb and his sixteen-inch guns as Willy. God, how I think about what I saw on that stage!" Brenner adds that Hoffman "has been training like a boxer for the role that so exhausted Cobb he had to be replaced after four months." The original play was directed by Elia Kazan, who Hoffman considers "the perfect director, the best there ever was. . . . God, I would have done anything to have worked with Kazan."

Hoffman's worst film failure was Elaine May's Ishtar (1987), co-starring Warren Beatty, who also produced it. Hoffman and Beatty play two down-and-out singer-songwriters who've gone to Morocco for a nightclub gig and get caught up in foreign intrigue. Much of the movie was filmed in Africa. The film faced severe production problems, mostly related to its $55 million cost, and received overwhelmingly negative reviews. However, Hoffman and Beatty liked the film's final cut and tried to defend it. Hoffman and Beatty were unaffected by the flop, and Ishtar became a cult film. Quentin Tarantino, for one, has called it one of his favorite movies, partly due to the humorous lyrics of the songs written by Paul Williams. Hoffman describes why he loves the film:

The thing I love about Ishtar, - and I love it with all of its flaws - is that it has a statement to make. And that is: It is far, far better to spend a life being second rate in something that you're passionate about, then to spend a life being first-rate at that which you are not passionate about. I thought that was worth making a movie about. These guys want to be Simon & Garfunkel, but they have no talent at all. They're middle-aged guys, and at the end of the movie they wind up singing "That's Amore" at a Holiday Inn in Morocco. It's fair. It's fair to make a movie about that.

Next came director Barry Levinson's Rain Man (1988), where Hoffman starred as an autistic savant, opposite Tom Cruise. Levinson, Hoffman and Cruise worked for two years on the film, and Hoffman's performance gained him his second Academy Award. Behind Hoffman's motivation for doing the film, he has said, "Deep inside, Rain Man is about how autistic we all are." In preparation for the part, Hoffman spent two years befriending autistic people, which included taking them bowling and to fast food restaurants. "It fed my obsession," he has stated.

Hoffman had worked at the New York Psychiatric Institute, affiliated with Columbia University, when he was 21. "It was a great experience for me," he has said. "All my life I had wanted to get inside a prison or a mental hospital. . . . I wanted to get inside where behavior, human behavior, was so exposed. All the things the rest of us were feeling and stopping up were coming out of these people." He used that experience to help him develop the character of Raymond Babbitt, a high-functioning autistic savant, yet a person who critic David Denby described as "a strangely shuttered genius." Hoffman created certain character traits for Raymond. Denby noted: "Hoffman, looking suddenly older and smaller, has developed a small shuffling walk for Raymond, with shoulder bent. His eyes don't make contact with anyone else's, and he flattens his voice to a dry nasal bark."

Rain Man won four Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Actor for Hoffman, and Best Director for Barry Levinson. Having worked closely with Hoffman for two years on filming, Levinson offered some opinions about his skill as an actor:

You can't define Dustin Hoffman, because he's unique. He's one of a kind and he's not one character. There is no Dustin Hoffman. He is many, many people. . . . He can do comedy and he can do drama. He has an enormous range, and yet he's still Dustin somewhere in there. He's intelligent and has a great sense of how to connect with people, because he's very interesting. On a day-to-day basis, he's like an actor who's making his first movie, with the enthusiasm and energy to want to make things happen and try things and experiment.

After Rain Man, Hoffman appeared with Sean Connery and Matthew Broderick in Family Business (1989), directed by Sidney Lumet. The story centers on the estrangement between Vito (Hoffman), a middle-age man trying to succeed in a legitimate business, and his "hopelessly corrupt but charming father," Jesse (Connery). Critics were mostly not impressed with the story, although the individual performances were praised, especially Connery's.

Because of their different acting styles and nationalities, some industry writers thought Connery and Hoffman might not work well together as close family members. "To the surprise of many," note Connery biographers Lee Pfeiffer and Lisa Philip, "the two superstars developed an immediate rapport and chemistry that translates onto the screen." And Lumet remembered: "Sean is extremely disciplined and Dustin is very improvisational, all over the place with his lines. I didn't know where it would end up, but Sean met Dustin improvisation for improvisation, and a great deal of richness and humor came out of it."

1990s:  Dick Tracy, Hook, Outbreak, Mad City, Wag the Dog

In 1991, Hoffman voiced substitute teacher Mr. Bergstrom in The Simpsons episode "Lisa's Substitute", under the pseudonym Sam Etic. As a reference to this episode, during the episode featuring the Itchy & Scratchy movie, Lisa claims that Dustin Hoffman had a cameo in that movie but didn't use his real name.

Throughout the 1990s, Hoffman appeared in many large, studio films, such as Dick Tracy (1990) (where his Ishtar co-star Beatty plays the titular character), Hero (1992) and Billy Bathgate (1991) co-starring with Nicole Kidman who was nominated for a Golden Globe). Hoffman also played the title role of Captain Hook in Steven Spielberg's Hook (also 1991), earning a Golden Globe nomination, and the narrator in Dr. Seuss Video Classics: Horton Hears a Who! (also 1992); in Hook, Hoffman's costume was so heavy that he had to wear an air-conditioned suit under it.

Hoffman played the lead role in Outbreak (1995), alongside Rene Russo, Kevin Spacey, Morgan Freeman, Cuba Gooding Jr. and Donald Sutherland. In the film, Hoffman is a medical doctor who uncovers a newly discovered Ebola-like virus which came to the U.S. from Africa in an infected monkey. Hoffman races to stop the virus's spread and find a vaccine before it becomes a worldwide pandemic with no cure.

The movie is described by critic Roger Ebert as "one of the great scare stories of our time, the notion that deep in the uncharted rain forests, deadly diseases are lurking, and if they ever escape their jungle homes and enter the human bloodstream, there will be a new plague the likes of which we have never seen." Critic David Denby credits Hoffman with giving the movie much of its thriller-like quality:

Tanks and men pour in to herd the terrified population here and there, and Dustin Hoffman, as the supersleuth Army doctor, gives such a lip-biting, anguished performance he absolves the movie of slickness. Hoffman isn't good, exactly; he's tense, edgy, and righteous, like a B-movie actor from the fifties.

Following that, he appeared in the 1996 revenge-drama/legal-thriller Sleepers (1996) with Robert De Niro, Brad Pitt, Jason Patric, and Kevin Bacon.

In the mid-1990s, Hoffman starred in—and was deeply involved in the production of—David Mamet's American Buffalo (also 1996), and an early effort of film editor Kate Sanford. In 1997, Hoffman starred opposite John Travolta in the Costa Gavras film Mad City.

Hoffman gained his seventh Academy Award nomination for his performance in Wag The Dog (1997), in a role that allowed Hoffman the chance to work with both Robert De Niro and Denis Leary. The movie is a black comedy film produced and directed by Barry Levinson, who also directed Hoffman in Rain Man in 1988.

The story takes place a few days before a presidential election, where a Washington, D.C. spin doctor (De Niro) distracts the electorate from a sex scandal by hiring a Hollywood film producer (Hoffman) to construct a fake war with Albania. Hoffman, as a caricature of real life producer Robert Evans, according to some, "gives the kind of wonderfully funny performance that is liable to win prizes, especially since its mixture of affection and murderous parody is so precise. Stanley (Hoffman) conducts business meetings in tennis clothes or in robe and slippers," notes critic Janet Maslin.

He next appeared in another Barry Levinson film, the science fiction psychological thriller, Sphere (1998), opposite Sharon Stone.

In 1999, Hoffman received the AFI Life Achievement Award and recalls the emotional impact that receiving the award had on him:

There was this reel of pictures, me playing all these different roles. I had my first—and only, thank God—panic attack. What followed was depression. . . . It had to do with a central core in me, which was that I never felt I deserved success.

2000s:  Finding Neverland, Meet the Fockers, Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium

Hoffman during the filming of Last Chance Harvey in 2008

Hoffman next appeared in Moonlight Mile (2002), followed by Confidence (2003) opposite Edward Burns, Andy García and Rachel Weisz. Hoffman finally had a chance to work with Gene Hackman in Gary Fleder's Runaway Jury (also 2003), an adaptation of John Grisham's bestselling novel.

Hoffman played theater owner Charles Frohman in the J. M. Barrie historical fantasia Finding Neverland (2004), costarring Johnny Depp and Kate Winslet. In director David O. Russell's I Heart Huckabees (also 2004), Hoffman appeared opposite Lily Tomlin as an existential detective team member.

Seven years after his nomination for Wag the Dog, Hoffman got another opportunity to perform again with Robert De Niro, co-starring with Barbra Streisand and Ben Stiller in the 2004 comedy Meet the Fockers, a sequel to Meet the Parents (2000). Hoffman won the 2005 MTV Movie Award for Best Comedic Performance. In 2005, he voiced a horse in Racing Stripes, and appeared in cameo roles in Andy García's The Lost City and on the final episode of HBO sitcom Curb Your Enthusiasm's fifth season. Hoffman appeared in Stranger than Fiction (2006), played the perfumer Giuseppe Baldini in Tom Tykwer's film Perfume: The Story of a Murderer (also 2006), and had a cameo in the same year's The Holiday.

In 2007, he was featured in an advertising campaign for Australian telecommunications company Telstra's Next G network, appeared in the 50 Cent video "Follow My Lead" as a psychiatrist, and played the title character in the family film Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium. In 2008, although he was reluctant to perform in an animated feature film (Although he had previously performed voices in a version of The Point! and in an episode of The Simpsons), Hoffman had a prominent role as Shifu in the acclaimed film Kung Fu Panda, which was praised in part for his comedic chemistry with Jack Black (whom he tutored in acting for an important scene) and his character's poignantly complex relationship with the story's villain. He later won the Annie Award for Voice Acting in an Animated Feature for Kung Fu Panda and has continued into the role in the franchise's subsequent filmed productions outside of the franchise's television series. He next voiced Roscuro in The Tale of Despereaux.

As the title character in Last Chance Harvey, Hoffman acted with co-star Emma Thompson in the story of two lonely people who tentatively forge a relationship over the course of three days. Director Joel Hopkins notes that Hoffman was a perfectionist and self-critical: "He often wanted to try things stripped down, because less is sometimes more. He worries about every little detail."

2010s:  Barney's Version, Kung Fu Panda, Little Fockers, Quartet

Hoffman in Paris at the French premiere of Quartet, March 2013

He appears in Little Fockers, the critically panned yet financially successful 2010 sequel to Meet the Fockers. However, his character plays a significantly smaller role than in the previous installment. In 2011, Hoffman reprised his role as Shifu in the commercially and critically successful animated film Kung Fu Panda 2.

Hoffman starred in the HBO horse-racing drama Luck, as a man involved in bookmaking and casino operations. Luck was cancelled in March 2012 after three horses died on set. Hoffman also directed Quartet, a BBC Films comedy starring Maggie Smith and Tom Courtenay.

In 2012, Hoffman's audiobook recording of Jerzy Kosinski's Being There was released at Audible.com. His performance was nominated for a 2013 Audie Award for Best Solo Narration – Male.

Personal life

With Gottsegen (left), and Jake Hoffman (right)

Hoffman married Anne Byrne in May 1969. Hoffman adopted Karina (b. 1966), Byrne's child from a previous marriage, and with Byrne had daughter Jenna (born October 15, 1970). In 1970, Hoffman and Byrne were living in Greenwich Village in a building next door to a townhouse occupied by members of the Weathermen, when a bomb was accidentally detonated in the townhouse's basement, killing three people. In the 2002 documentary The Weather Underground, Hoffman can be seen standing in the street during the aftermath of the explosion. The couple divorced in 1980.

He married businesswoman Lisa Gottsegen in October 1980; they have four children – Jacob Edward (born March 20, 1981), Rebecca Lillian (b. March 17, 1983), Maxwell Geoffrey (born August 30, 1984), and Alexandra Lydia (born October 27, 1987). Hoffman has two grandchildren. In an interview, he said that all of his children from his second marriage had bar or bat mitzvahs and that he is a more observant Jew now than when he was younger; he has also lamented that he is not fluent in Hebrew.

A political liberal, Hoffman has long supported the Democratic Party and Ralph Nader. In 1997, he was one of a number of Hollywood stars and executives to sign an open letter to then-German Chancellor Helmut Kohl protesting the treatment of Scientologists in Germany, which was published as a newspaper advertisement in the International Herald Tribune.

In 2009, he received the freedom of the Italian city Ascoli Piceno for being there during 1972 to shoot the movie Alfredo, Alfredo by Pietro Germi, where he played the role of Alfredo Sbisà.

Hoffman is a lifelong fan of Archie Comics and owns a copy of every single issue ever printed.

Dustin Hoffman received Kennedy Center Honors in 2012, with the following commendation: "Dustin Hoffman's unyielding commitment to the wide variety of roles he plays has made him one of the most versatile and iconoclastic actors of this or any other generation".

Hoffman was successfully treated for cancer in 2013.

Filmography and awards

Year	Title	Role	Director	Notes and awards
1967	The Tiger Makes Out	Hap	Arthur Hiller
1967	The Graduate	Benjamin "Ben" Braddock	Mike Nichols	BAFTA Award for Most Promising Newcomer to Leading Film Roles Golden Globe Award for New Star of the Year – Actor Nominated – Academy Award for Best Actor Nominated – Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy Nominated – Laurel Award for Male Comedy Performance
1968	Madigan's Millions	Jason Fister	Stanley Prager
1969	Midnight Cowboy	Enrico Salvatore "Ratso" Rizzo	John Schlesinger	BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role David di Donatello Award for Best Foreign Actor Laurel Award for Male Dramatic Performance Nominated – Academy Award for Best Actor Nominated – Golden Globe Award for Best Actor - Motion Picture Drama Nominated – New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actor Nominated – New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Supporting Actor
1969	John and Mary	John	Peter Yates	BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role Nominated – Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy
1970	Little Big Man	Jack Crabb	Arthur Penn	Nominated – BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role Nominated – Golden Laurel Award for Male Comedy Performance
1971	Who Is Harry Kellerman and Why Is He Saying Those Terrible Things About Me?	Georgie Soloway	Ulu Grosbard
1971	Straw Dogs	David Sumner	Sam Peckinpah
1972	Alfredo, Alfredo	Alfredo Sbisà	Pietro Germi
1973	Papillon	Louis Dega	Franklin J. Schaffner
1974	Lenny	Lenny Bruce	Bob Fosse	Nominated – Academy Award for Best Actor Nominated – BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role Nominated – Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Drama Nominated – New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actor
1976	All the President's Men	Carl Bernstein	Alan J. Pakula	Nominated – BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role
1976	Marathon Man	Thomas Babington "Babe" Levy	John Schlesinger	David di Donatello Award for Best Foreign Actor Nominated – BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role Nominated – Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Drama
1978	Straight Time	Max Dembo	Ulu Grosbard	Also producer
1979	Agatha	Wally Stanton	Michael Apted	National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Actor
1979	Kramer vs. Kramer	Ted Kramer	Robert Benton	Academy Award for Best Actor David di Donatello Award for Best Foreign Actor Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Drama Kansas City Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actor Los Angeles Film Critics Association Award for Best Actor National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Actor New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actor Nominated – BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role Nominated – Fotogramas de Plata for Best Foreign Performer
1982	Tootsie	Michael Dorsey / Dorothy Michaels	Sydney Pollack	BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role Boston Society of Film Critics Award for Best Actor Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Actor Nominated – Academy Award for Best Actor Nominated – David di Donatello for Best Foreign Actor Nominated – New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actor Nominated – Utah Film Critics Association Award for Best Actor
1985	Death of a Salesman	William "Willy" Loman	Volker Schlöndorff	Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Miniseries or Television Film Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Miniseries or a Movie Nominated – Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Television Movie Nominated – Silver Ribbon Award for Best Foreign Actor
1987	Ishtar	Chuck Clarke	Elaine May
1988	Rain Man	Raymond "Ray" Babbitt	Barry Levinson	Academy Award for Best Actor David di Donatello for Best Foreign Actor Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Drama Kansas City Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actor Utah Film Critics Association Award for Best Actor Nominated – BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role Nominated – Chicago Film Critics Association Award for Best Actor Nominated – National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Actor Nominated – New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actor
1989	Common Threads: Stories from the Quilt	Narrator	Rob Epstein & Jeffrey Friedman	Documentary
1989	Family Business	Vito McMullen	Sidney Lumet
1990	Dick Tracy	Mumbles	Warren Beatty
1990	The Earth Day Special	Everylawyer
1991	Billy Bathgate	Dutch Schultz	Robert Benton
1991	The Simpsons	Mr. Bergstrom		Episode: "Lisa's Substitute" Credited as Sam Etic
1991	Hook	Captain James Hook	Steven Spielberg	Nominated – Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy
1992	Doctor Seuss Video Classics: Horton Hears a Who!	Narrator
1992	Hero	Bernard "Bernie" Laplante	Stephen Frears
1995	Outbreak	Colonel Sam Daniels	Wolfgang Petersen
1996	American Buffalo	Walt 'Teach' Teacher	Michael Corrente
1996	Sleepers	Danny Snyder	Barry Levinson
1997	Mad City	Max Brackett	Costa-Gavras
1997	Wag the Dog	Stanley Motss	Barry Levinson	Nominated – Academy Award for Best Actor Nominated – Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy Nominated – National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Actor Nominated – Satellite Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy Nominated – Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Leading Role
1998	Sphere	Dr. Norman Goodman	Barry Levinson
1999	The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc	The Conscience	Luc Besson
2002	Moonlight Mile	Ben Floss	Brad Silberling
2003	Confidence	Winston King	James Foley
2003	Runaway Jury	Wendell Rohr	Gary Fleder
2004	Finding Neverland	Charles Frohman	Marc Forster	Nominated – Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture
2004	I Heart Huckabees	Bernard Jaffe	David O. Russell
2004	Meet the Fockers	Bernie Focker	Jay Roach	MTV Movie Award for Best Comedic Performance
2004	Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events	The Critic	Brad Silberling	Uncredited
2005	Racing Stripes	Tucker	Frederik Du Chau	Voice
2005	The Lost City	Meyer Lansky	Andy García
2006	Perfume: The Story of a Murderer	Giuseppe Baldini	Tom Tykwer
2006	Stranger than Fiction	Professor Jules Hilbert	Marc Forster
2006	The Holiday	Himself	Nancy Meyers	Uncredited
2007	Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium	Mr. Edward Magorium	Zach Helm
2008	Kung Fu Panda	Master Shifu	John Stevenson & Mark Osborne	Voice Annie Award for Best Voice Acting in an Animated Feature Production
2008	The Tale of Despereaux	Roscuro	Sam Fell & Robert Stevenhagen	Voice
2009	Last Chance Harvey	Harvey Shine	Joel Hopkins	Nominated – Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy
2010	Barney's Version	Israel 'Izzy' Panofsky	Richard J. Lewis	Genie Award for Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role Vancouver Film Critics Circle Award for Best Supporting Actor in a Canadian Film
2010	Jews and Baseball: An American Love Story	Narrator	Peter Miller	Documentary
2010	Little Fockers	Bernie Focker	Paul Weitz
2011	Kung Fu Panda 2	Master Shifu	Jennifer Yuh Nelson	Voice
2011–2012	Luck	Chester "Ace" Bernstein		TV series
2012	Quartet		Dustin Hoffman	Directorial debut Chicago International Film Festival Award for Best Narrative Feature Hollywood Film Festival Award for Breakthrough Directing Nominated – David di Donatello Award for Best European Film Nominated – Hawaii International Film Festival Award for Best Film
2014	Chef	Riva	Jon Favreau
2014	Roald Dahl's Esio Trot	Mr. Hoppy	Dearbhla Walsh
2014	The Cobbler	Abraham Simkin	Thomas McCarthy
2014	Boychoir	Carvelle	François Girard
2015	The Program	Bob Hamman	Stephen Frears	Post-production
2016	Kung Fu Panda 3	Master Shifu (voice)	Jennifer Yuh Nelson & Alessandro Carloni

External links

• Dustin Hoffman at IMDb
• Dustin Hoffman at the Internet Broadway Database
• Template:Mojo name
• Dustin Hoffman December 2007 video interview at Stv.tv