Simply Dustin Hoffman

 On Acting

"I decided to become an actor because I was failing in school and I needed the credits."  

"I got into acting so that I could meet girls. Pretty girls came later. First, I wanted to start off with someone with two legs, who'd smile at me and look soft."

"You get these rejections over and over and over again, which all actors get, year after year after year after year. You don't know if you're good, because it hasn't been validated. And it's an extremely painful and frightening experience, because you don't know whether you're conning yourself or not."

"You get caught of guard during a take. Your mind goes wild and it just comes out 'Waaa, you talking to me!'"

"I became an actor because I believed I was a failure. In acting, because so few of us ever get work, I could feel proud and fail with dignity. I was born into what I now know was a dysfunctional family. I found that out in therapy three weeks ago."

"I started junior college in Los Angeles because I didn't have the grades to go to university and I didn't want to go into the military. So in my first year of junior college I'm failing and I don't know what to do. I don't want to get a job, I want to be a student, and a friend says, 'Take acting, because they don't flunk you - it's like gym, nobody gets an F.' "I took it and suddenly it was the first thing I ever did that wasn't painful. Where I held focus. And suddenly, rehearsing with somebody - learning lines - hours could pass by. And I begged my parents to let me go to this acting school, because I knew I couldn't fail."

"If you can get out there and say I'm going to...I'm willing to fail at what I feel is right, that's it."

"You go in trying to reach for something you feel, you feel, and you know you're not going to reach it."

"So when I told my parents I wanted to go into acting because I was flunking out of my first year of junior college, they were relieved that I had picked something other than joining the army. But I can't imagine how they had high hopes for me."

"Go in because it is the only way you choose to survive, and I swear to God, I feel it as strongly now as I felt it 40 years ago when I first started, and that is if tommorrow...you know, tommorrow you say, "That's it, I'm over, I'm in a community theather and I'm as excited about as I-"...and sometimes even more, than you...that's it, that's it. That's it. There's no other way you want to survive. I fucking love it.

"I wanted to be a jazz pianist, but I wasn't good enough. I got into city college because I didn't have the grades to get into university. I took acting because it was a way to get three credits. I just needed three credits and my friend told me to take acting because it was like gym - nobody fails you. I took it and that's literally how I got involved in acting."

"When I first went into acting, I didn't like myself very much. I didn't really know who I was. And I would feel something I didn't get in real life when I was working on stage."

"I didn't want to act for any positive reasons but as a sheer negative reaction to the necessity of studying. I thought if I could become an actor, I could get away from all those responsibilities and that's what appealed to me."

On Life

"Life stinks, but that doesn't mean you don't enjoy it."

"There's a rebirth that goes on with us continuously as human beings. I don't understand, personally, how you can be bored. I can understand how you can be depressed, but I just don't understand boredom."

"I've got a few blueberries left. That's a good metaphor for life."

"My friend Murray Schisgal says to be human is to be fucked; to know that you're fucked right off the bat. Once you know that, then get on with it. And, I guess, to really fear death is to fear life."

"It's very painful for us to feel we deserve a life. That's the toughest thing. That we deserve to have a life. That can take a lifetime."

"I think the most chilling aspect of life is that it's really impossible to live every minute."

"God knows I've done enough crap in my life to grow a few flowers."

"I envy people who can just look at a sunset. I wonder how you can shoot it. There is nothing more grotesque to me than a vacation."

On Growing Up

"In my room as a kid... I'd play a fighter and get knocked to the floor and come back to win."

"I never thought of being an actor when I was a kid. I was more of a comedian. By the time I was four, maybe even three, I had already become a clown."

"I failed everything growing up. I was convinced I was failing for a reason. I wasn't intelligent or like most people. I could barely get through school. I was considered in my family to be a loser. My brother, who is older, was an A student - captain of the football team and the baseball team, and I was the comedian. And someone saying, 'Boy, you're a real comedian,' is like someone saying, 'Boy, you're a real loser."

"Somehow I think it was declared very early on that I was the - if not the black sheep of the family, not a very good student."

On Life before he was famous

"I lived below the official American poverty line until I was 31."

"To this day, Robert Duvall says it was one of the best times of when we were all living together. Because I'd come home and they'd say, 'What did so-and-so do today?' and I'd act out the characters I'd met there. Gene Hackman would spend his entire day in the cinema. It was a place where the homeless went, because for 35 cents they could sleep there all day. He was in there at 10am and he heard one homeless guy in the balcony saying, 'You're sorry? You're sorry? What do you mean, you're sorry? You piss all over my date and you say you're sorry?"

On Talent

"If you have this enormous talent, it's got you by the balls, it's a demon. You can't be a family man and a husband and a caring person and be that animal. Dickens wasn't that nice a guy."

On God/Religion

"How has God changed for me since the time I was six years old? He got older."

On his Jobs

(New York Psychiatric Institute) "It was one of the most illuminating experiences I ever had. You see all the devils we have and just see it out of control. The only thing that frightened me was, I had to hold people down while they were given shock treatments, but after a few months I said, 'I can't do it any more.' [At the time, he was reading "One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest," and couldn't get over how close it mirrored life at the psychiatric institute.] You went in there normal and came out crazy in those days. You came out worse."

"A waiter is treated especially badly by people and I had a tendency to strike back, with humor. I'd give the customers some smartassed remark. But if I knew I was about to be fired, I'd go all out to get fired in style."

Philosophy

"Myth is supposed to bring us together, but fantasy alienates us."

"If a lot of dogs are on the beach, the first thing they do is smell each other's ass. The information that's gotten somehow makes pacifists out of all of them. I've thought, 'If only we smelled each other's asses, there wouldn't be any war.'"

"Someone once said to me, 'Some of us choose to live with a lifeboat just a little bit out of our reach.' I'd like to reach a point where I no longer bullshit myself. I think that's the natural human condition - to lie to yourself. Because the truth is painful."

On Age 

"I don't like the fact that I have to get older so fast, but I like the fact that I'm aging so well."

"I'm sixty-eight, I cry every chance I can."

"The truth is, the older you get, the less variety of parts you are offered. If you're a star and you've spent most of your career being able to take your pick of the litter, you notice when the offers start to diminish. You're too old to play leads, so you're offered the supporting role - but many stars don't want to make that transition. They see it as a sign of symbolic impotence. And that the audience will no longer regard them as a star. I love acting, and I'm not going to determine what I do based on what I fear other people might think. I do what I want to do."

On Hollywood/Industry

"Euthanasia is legal in Hollywood. They just kill the film if it doesn't succeed immediately."

"They (critics) matter because they hurt when they're not nice. And why that hurts is because you have no recourse."

"A good review from the critics is just another stay of execution."

"We all believe what we read. I read how Tom Cruise and I were two big egos holding up shooting. I know that isn't true - but if I wasn't making a movie with him and I just picked up the paper, I'd believe it. That's interesting, isn't it?"

On Women/Gender

"Women have a tendency to make me feel very vulnerable. I think men are scared to death of women, and with good reason."

"I do love the essential differences between men and women. And I think there are essential differences; you don't have to pretend they don't exist. One of the things I always used to say is that if I had a vagina, I would have been much more selective. But this thing called a penis is like taking a dog for a walk. How many times do women fantasise about having sex with men on the street? May I ask you that? Men think about it every minute."

"Womankind occupies my thinking most of the day. I don't think that I think about anything else more."

"Courageous? How's this? Jake was a month premature. The placenta had torn off the wall, and Lisa was hemorrhaging. Like in one of those TV shows, the doctor got her on a gurney and said we had to hurry. "I need anesthesiaI I need this! I need that!" Later we were told that we had a twelve minute window. Lisa would have expired, and Jake would have gone with her. Lisa could sense the urgency of it. She said quietly to the doctor, "If you have a choice, you make sure to save the baby." Just like that. Simple. I don't know anything more courageous. If a man was in that situation, the guy would say, "There's got to be a way to save both of us." Men would negotiate. There has to be a way."

"I feel cheated never being able to know what it's like to get pregnant, carry a child and breast feed."

"For whatever reason, I was never one of the guys. I wasn't on a football team. I played tennis because of my lack of stature. I was never in a club in high school. I would rather be in no club than in the club that takes anybody. I was never in a fraternity. The minute I finished high school and left my parents' home, I became aware of how extraordinary it could be to be with a woman on a daily basis. That's what I did. I got into relationships. The most wonderful thing was to hang out with your girlfriend. I don't understand the world of men. It's a foreign land to me. Men hang out. I never hang out with men. I have a passion for sitting down with a group of gals. I like the energy of women when they're together. They don't seem to have the same anxiety as a bunch of men looking around at who to fuck or discussing the deal they did or didn't make."

"When you get to be my age, you'll find out what an emotional mess YOU are. Female ormones surface more and more and you're gonna realize all of the emotional life you have missed by being tied to a maniac called testosterone. It is not a bad feeling to be emotional."

"I'll die wishing I had learned more about what I fear about women."

On Rumors

"I know it's written that I'm difficult. Barry Levinson - who I did four films with - told me that every press person comes up to him and asks, 'How do you work with that guy?' and he says, 'I've done nothing but extol what a privilege and fun it's been.' But not one interviewer has ever printed that. Look, the medical metaphor I use is, it's like you're on a table for brain surgery and you're being wheeled in and the guy leans in and says, 'Hi I'm your brain surgeon and don't worry - I'm not difficult, I'm not a perfectionist.' I am no different from the focus puller - you're either sharp or you're not."

On his looks

"I was short, as I said. I had braces. And I was all nose. My nose seemed to be all over my face. If people think it's big now, it was the same size when I was a kid, and the rest of my face was half the size it is now. It's filled out since. I can remember being so self-conscious about my nose that if I was talking to a girl in the schoolyard at lunch or something. I made sure I was talking to her full on. And I'd never walk away in profile."

On Stardom

"I grew up thinking a movie star had to be like Rock Hudson or Tab Hunter, certainly nobody in any way like me."

"Stardom equals freedom. It's the only equation that matters."

"One thing about being successful is that I stopped being afraid of dying. Once you're a star you're dead already. You're embalmed."

On Politics

"For me as an American, the most painful aspect of this is that I believe that [this] administration has taken the events of 9/11 and has manipulated the grief of the country and I think that's reprehensible. I don't think, like many of us, that the reasons we have been given for going to war are the honest reasons. If they are saying it's about the fact they have biological weapons and might have nuclear weapons and that gives us the liberty to pre-empt and strike because we think they might hit us, then what prevents Pakistan from attacking India, what prevents India from attacking Pakistan, what prevents us from going into North Korea? I believe--though I may wrong because I am no expert--that this war is about what most wars are about: hegemony, money, power and oil."

"I believe - though I may be wrong, because I'm no expert - that this war is about what most wars are about: hegemony, money, power and oil."

"If there is no direct threat why are we invading?"

"I've got to admit that some of me worked for McCarthy, McGovern, Ramsey Clark, Allard Lowenstein and others because all of that free exposure kept me in the public eye. But I also did my little thing for McCarthy, McGovern and the rest, because I agreed with their ideas and I thought they were honest men—which is rare in politics. I mean, I don't think what Nixon did was all that surprising; what was amazing was that he got caught. And what was most amazing was that we elected him twice. I think, finally, one can be political in my line of work and yet be honest."

On Movies

"You go to the cinema and you realize you're watching the third act. There is no first or second act. There is this massive film-making where you spend this incredible amount of money and play right to the demographic. You can tell how much money the film is going to make by how it does on the first weekend. The whole culture is in the crap house. It's not just true in the movies, it's also true in the theater."

On The Graduate

"It was like a bad dream for me. And it came at a time when I was beginning to get work off-Broadway as an actor and I'd just been in a hit and I'd gotten awards and I thought for the rest of my life my dream will come true: I will be an off-Broadway actor for the rest of my life. And that would have been enough. More than enough. Steady employment was the goal. If God had come down at that moment and said to me or Gene Hackman or Robert Duvall, 'Sign a contract here that says "You're never going to be successful, you're never going to have a lead, you're never going to be rich and famous, you will never be on Broadway, you will never be in the West End - you'll be not even off, but off-off-off-Broadway, but you will never see a day without work' - we would have signed on the dotted line in a New York minute."

"I learned years later that after they cut it, they started showing it at screening rooms, you know, producer's houses and things like that. And invariably, people would say, 'What a shame. Great movie, but he miscast the lead.' Constantly! And they thought it was gonna be a disaster."

On Marathon Man

"I did a movie called Marathon Man and it was one of my best memories."

On Stranger Than Fiction

"I'm really proud of it, and I've only said that about three times during my career."

On Kramer vs. Kramer

What makes divorce happen is that you can't be in the same space any more, for whatever reason - but the love stays. And that's the killer. That's where the vehemence and anger and rage comes from."

On Celebs

 (Meryl Streep) "She's an ox when it comes to acting. She eats words for breakfast. Working with her is like playing tennis with Chris Evert -- she keeps trying to hit the perfect ball."

 (Robert Deniro) "See, if you think about Bobby's earlier work [in TAXI DRIVER] ... "Are you looking at me? Are YOU looking at ME!?", there is a rhythm there. That's why it's so memorable. He knows the power of the words. When they work, it's magic."

 (Mike Nichols) "He makes you feel kind of like a kite. He lets you go ahead and you do your thing. And then when you're finished he pulls you in by the string. But at least you've had the enjoyment of the wind."

 (Barney Brown) "told me, you can have a life. He didn't say anything about success. He said, 'Whether you direct, write, act or stage-manage, you're in the right place.' And he said, 'Go to New York and understand one thing - nothing is going to happen to you for 10 years. Give yourself 10 years and nothing is going to happen.' It was true. I found work where I could fail with dignity. Because 90% of us didn't get jobs."

 (Gene Hackman) "They kicked him out after three months because he had no talent."

 (Gene Hackman) "Psychologically, Gene/myself, we did not think about making it in the terms that people think about. We fully expected to be failures for our entire life. Meaning that we would always be scrambling to get a part. We were actors. We had no pretensions. There was more dignity in being unsuccessful."

 (Clint Eastwood) "I once met Clint Eastwood, and it was remarkable. I studied him as I spoke to him. I looked down, and his pants were a little short -- they showed a bit too much of his socks. There was something so timid and shy and almost gawky about him in real life. I remember thinking to myself, Someone should have cast him in Meet John Doe, the Frank Capra movie, because that's the real him. There's not a wisp of aggression about him. That's the real essence, not the guy who says, "Make my day."

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