Dustin Hoffman has described making “The Graduate” as a “terrible experience,” saying the film brought his insecurities to the surface almost immediately.
In a recent essay, the 89-year-old actor looked back on the movie, which brought him his first Academy Award nomination and a BAFTA win. He recalled feeling uncomfortable on set and unsure he belonged there.
“Here I was, playing a starring role in a movie by Mike Nichols, who was the director of the moment, but I felt like I had no right to be there,” Hoffman wrote. “It was a terrible experience making the movie that changed my life.”
He often wondered whether Nichols was angry with him because he was doing something wrong—or because the director had realized what Hoffman believed everyone else already knew: that he was the wrong choice for the lead.
Hoffman said he had not even wanted to audition. After reading the novel the film was based on, he thought he was clearly unsuited to play Benjamin.
Benjamin, he noted, was a track star, an excellent student and head of the debate team—a wealthy, all-American young man. Hoffman questioned why someone with his own ethnic appearance would be cast as “the ultimate Wasp,” adding that it made no sense to him.
His difficult feelings were compounded by his relationship with Nichols, whom Hoffman described as irritable and frequently sour on set. The director’s manner often left the actor thinking he was about to be fired. During some of the film’s best-known scenes, Hoffman said, he would find himself thinking he had no idea what he was doing.
Hoffman also felt Nichols showed a kind of “sadism” toward him. He recalled filming the scene in which Elaine, played by Katharine Ross, slaps Benjamin after he arrives soaked from the rain and confesses to an affair with her mother.
According to Hoffman, Nichols asked Ross to hit him harder, again and again. Ross worried about hurting him, but Hoffman told her he would be fine as long as she avoided his ear. She missed a few times, he said, and he was dizzy by the end of the day. Nichols did not use the slap in the finished film.
The following day, Hoffman filmed an underwater scene. He later noticed blood trickling from his ear; it turned out he had a punctured eardrum.
“The Graduate” became one of Hoffman’s most recognizable films. It follows Benjamin, a recent college graduate who feels adrift after finishing school and begins an affair with an older family friend.
Released in 1967, the film received seven Academy Award nominations, including acting nominations for Hoffman and Anne Bancroft. Nichols won the award for best director.
