BEIJING, Nov. 14 -- It's hard to be objective when interviewing one's favorite actor. Of course there are Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, Jack Nicholson. They are all top caliber, but Dustin Hoffman will always be at the top of my list, even if he doesn't consider himself a star.
"If I go out to eat by myself, no one bothers me. But all I have to do is go out with someone like John Travolta and I can't eat in peace. You see? I'm not a star," said Hoffman.
He doesn't seem to realize that people respect him so highly that they don't have the courage to bother him. Humility is part of his nature, as is his ever-present sense of humor.
"Wouldn't you pay a dollar to know what George Bush is doing right now?" he joked at the beginning of our interview.
Q: Have you ever been in therapy?
A: I'm in therapy. I don't remember not being in therapy. I hope I'm in therapy even after I die. One of the things you're taught to do, if you have a good therapist, is to be spontaneous. It doesn't have to connect. It all depends on if you have a good therapist, and a good one tells you to do the same thing you try to do in acting: to free flow.
The first thing that comes to my mind is, if I was in therapy right now, I'd say, 'I don't know why, but I want this interview to go on forever.' (He laughs.) I know that at any moment someone will say 'last question' and I'm going to get very sad.
Q: In an ironic way, do you enjoy your career more now that you don't get the starring roles?
A: Yes, yes, yes and yes. I started out playing supporting parts, and now I'm right back to playing supporting parts. (He laughs.) I find that ironic.
Dustin Hoffman was born in Los Angeles on August 8, 1937, and first studied acting at the Pasadena Playhouse.
"The truth is that I didn't want to be an actor. I wanted to be a pianist. I wasn't doing so well at Santa Monica City College; I needed three credits and someone told me to take an acting class 'because nobody flunks acting.' That's how I got started."
He then moved to New York City to continue his studies. "I was 21 when I left in 1958," he recalled. His first professional job was in a show on Broadway, "A Cook for Mr General" (1961), but it wasn't the greatest start to a career.
"Up until I was 30, I never earned more than US$3,000 a month. In 1958 I was getting unemployment benefits. The maximum benefit you could get was US$50 a week. So I worked for 20 weeks, and then I'd get unemployment for 26 more weeks."
Hoffman became famous when he got a role as a college student seduced by his girlfriend's mother (Anne Bancroft) in the classic Mike Nichols film, "The Graduate" (1967). That character earned him his first Oscar nomination. Two years later, he received a second Oscar nomination for his portrayal of Ratso Rizzo in "Midnight Cowboy" (1969), costarring Jon Voight.
He was nominated again for his starring role in "Lenny" (1974), the biopic about comedian Lenny Bruce; although he didn't win an Oscar until his fourth nomination, for his role as a divorced dad in "Kramer vs Kramer" (1979).
The following year he personally experienced divorce, splitting with his first wife, ballerina Anne Byrne, on October 6, 1980. He married his current wife, Lisa Gottsegen, 15 days after the divorce was final.
"I have six children and the two youngest live with me," he says proudly. "Max is in college already, and Allie is finishing high school, but neither one of them wants to act. I'm sure my oldest son, Jake, will continue as a director."
Hoffman doesn't know if his children will one day regret their decision not to go into acting, but he has experienced regret in his own career. More than once he rejected a movie that went down in film history.
One of the roles he turned down was taken by Robert De Niro, who played Travis Brickle in "Taxi Driver." Another was taken by Al Pacino, who played Michael Corleone in "The Godfather" trilogy.
"When I look back now, I regret having rejected movies that I should have accepted. But it took me a long time to realize that the script isn't that important to me." One of those decisions resulted in Hoffman passing on the movie "Gandhi," because he had been offered the starring role in "Tootsie" (1982) at the same time.
When he received his fifth Oscar nomination for his role as "Tootsie," it seemed like he had made the right choice. Then he lost the Oscar to Ben Kingsley, who had accepted the starring role in "Gandhi." Hoffman kept on working and earned a well-deserved second Academy Award for Best Actor as Tom Cruise's autistic brother in "Rain Man."
Q: Do you think about the Oscars every time you get a new role?
A: Some actors lie. Will Farrell, for example, will tell you he's not interested in an Oscar, but in every scene we did together, when I told him it was good, he would ask me if I thought he was going to be nominated, every single time. (He laughs.)
Q: You've been nominated for an Oscar seven times and you've won two!
A: (He interrupts.) Not enough.
Q: Does winning an Oscar really change an actor's life?
A: According to Emma Thompson, apparently you live longer. Have you heard? It's a fact. The statisticians have worked it out. You get an extra eight years per Oscar. So now it's become a question not of money, but of life span.
Q: Are you working on a movie right now?
A: We finished filming "Mr Magorium's Wonder Emporium" on June 11 in Toronto. I play Mr Magorium, a 243-year-old toy inventor who bequeaths his store to Natalie Portman, and as he does, all the magic in the toy store starts to change and go away. It's the first time I've ever worked with a first-time director, Zach Helm. It wasn't because I avoided it; it just happened.
Q: Do you find it liberating to have smaller parts as you did in "Finding Neverland," "I Heart Huckabees" and "Meet the Fockers?"
A: No. I miss being the star. That was liberating. When they gave me the script for "Stranger than Fiction," I called the director (Marc Foster) to ask him what page my character started on. I told him that I was already on page 23, and he told me to keep reading. What he said was, "It's not the lead, but it's a little bigger than "Finding Neverland."
"Stranger than Fiction' is an original comedy about a writer (Emma Thompson) who writes a novel about a lonely tax auditor (Will Farrell), not realizing that as she writes the story, it becomes reality.
The person who first realizes what is happening is the fictitious (and also real) tax auditor, who starts hearing the author's voice in his head as she tells his life story.
He is surprised when he experiences everything the author writes. According to the production notes, Hoffman plays the role of a literary theorist, Dr Jules Hilbert, who helps Farrell find out what is happening to him. He also suggests that the auditor change certain parts of his life to avoid being killed by the author when she comes to the end of the story.
Q: What exactly is a literary theorist?
A: A what?
Q: A literary theorist. That's how the production notes describe your job in the movie.
A: Don't ask me. If I had seen that, I would have asked the same question. I didn't read the production notes. A literary what? I would call it a professor of literature. (He laughs.)
Q: In the movie you worked with two great comic actors, Emma Thompson and Will Farrell. Can you tell us any funny stories about working together?
A: First of all, we all cheated on our spouses. (He winks.) Emma and I had fun together, and somehow we fell into walking the streets of Chicago, having memorized our scenes. We'd run the lines back and forth.
Every once in a while people would recognize us, so we decided to say the lines in such a way that it really sounded like dialogue, and let these people overhear it. Then we would improvise a bit on the dialogue. (He pauses a second, stares straight ahead and makes a face.) It doesn't sound interesting, but that's one of the amusing stories. I can't tell you what Emma and I did on New Year's Eve.
Q: Finally, you admit that people recognize you as a movie star. Do you like it or do you hide behind sunglasses and a hat when you're out in public?
A: Emma complained that I don't wear a hat or a scarf to disguise myself when I walk down the street.
With a hat, all you see is my nose. I'd rather be recognized than look like an aging Jew. I don't know anybody with a nose like mine that wears a hat. We with the large noses don't look good in hats, no matter which way you turn it. That's the real reason.
(Source: Shanghai Daily)
