Key Points
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In his new memoir, actor Dustin Hoffman recalled his storied career in Hollywood, including the filming of his breakthrough role in 1967’s The Graduate.
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Hoffman wrote that director Mike Nichols had costar Katharine Ross slap him 27 times for a scene.
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The slapping scene didn’t make the final cut of the movie.
For Dustin Hoffman, shooting his breakthrough role in The Graduate was sometimes painful.
He blames the director, Mike Nichols, who died in 2014 at 83.
The two-time Oscar winner wrote in his upcoming memoir, Look at Me, that Nichols was gruff in their interactions.
“Mike was irritable with everyone, but with me a certain sadism seemed to creep in,” Hoffman explained, according to an excerpt published Saturday inThe New Yorker. “There was a scene in which Katharine Ross had to slap me, and he made us do 27 takes.”
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The comedy about Hoffman’s character Benjamin Braddock, who’s unsure about what to do with his life after finishing his education and finds himself entangled in a love triangle between an older woman (Anne Bancroft’s Mrs. Robinson) and her daughter (Katharine Ross’ Elaine Robinson), ultimately didn’t feature the slap in the final cut.
“The scene has Benjamin run into Elaine’s room, soaking wet from the rain, to tell her that he’s had an affair with an older woman; within seconds, Elaine realizes the woman is her mother,” Hoffman wrote. “Mike just kept telling Katharine to hit me, to hit me harder. Katharine worried she would hurt me, and I told her, ‘I’m O.K. Just don’t hit my ear.’ Unfortunately, she missed a few times. I was dizzy by the end of that day, and Mike didn’t even use the slap in the film.”
The repercussions of the slaps continued for hours afterward.
“The next day, we shot an underwater scene in the pool: Benjamin is being forced to try the scuba suit his father has bought for him,” Hoffman wrote. “The scene was meant to symbolize the way that Benjamin’s parents gave their children material things instead of love. Mike didn’t want me to keep popping up out of the water, so I had to hold myself down: if you watch the movie, you can see that one hand is behind me the whole time I’m underwater, because I’m holding on to the ladder behind me. When I came up for air after a few takes, there was blood trickling out of my ear.”
Hoffman even went to see a doctor.
“Between all the slapping during the previous day and all the water pressure at the bottom of the pool, I’d punctured an eardrum,” he continued. “(They sent me to the best ear doctor in Beverly Hills, and I remember him telling me, ‘The eardrum is like a pie: you have a slice of pie missing.’)”
At least the movie was — and still is — an important one. Nichols won Best Director at the 1968 Oscars for his work, and the film is consistently named on the list of bests on the American Film Institute’s various lists.
Look at Me is available at bookstores Nov. 10.
Read the original article on Entertainment Weekly
