Dustin Hoffman has revealed he thought he looked too “ethnic” to play the role that made him famous, only to be told by The Graduate director Mike Nichols: “Maybe he’s Jewish inside”.
Hoffman, who was already an established theatre actor in New York, initially struggled to understand why he was considered for the part of Benjamin Braddock in the 1967 film.
The character is a wealthy, academically successful young man from an affluent California family, someone Hoffman sees as the embodiment of a WASP – a white Anglo-Saxon Protestant.
In an essay for The New Yorker magazine, adapted from his forthcoming memoir, Look at Me, co-written with journalist Ariel Levy, Hoffman, 89, writes: “The Graduate exacerbated all my insecurities from the start.”
He went on: “When my agent said that Mike was interested in me, I didn’t even want to try out for the part. I had read the Charles Webb novel that Mike was adapting, and it was obvious that I was all wrong for Benjamin.
“A track star and straight-A student, the head of the debate team—this was an affluent, all-American kid, whose surname was ‘Braddock’.
“Why would you cast a person who looks as ethnic as I do to play the ultimate Wasp? It made absolutely no sense.”
A famous scene from The Graduate (Photo-YouTube Studiocanal)[Missing Credit]
In The New Yorker piece, he writes about a phone conversation he had with Nichols.
“You’re saying you’re not right for it because you’re Jewish,” Mike said.
“Well, because Benjamin’s so not Jewish.”
“There was a pause. Then Mike said, “Maybe he’s Jewish inside.” ”
The casting process for The Graduate had already taken almost two years, with actors including Robert Redford considered for the leading role before Nichols settled on Hoffman.
He recounted staying at a hotel with the cast and crew.
"Out by the pool, it was like a cabana party on Mount Olympus: the people looked like golden gods among the palm trees. I felt immediately uncomfortable, unworthy. 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.”
During the make-up process, Hoffman recalls spending hours with the famous Westmore family of Hollywood make-up artists, while Nichols suggested changes to his eyebrows and neck. His monobrow was plucked to create two separate eyebrows, and he was given a turtleneck top as his neck “looked too thick”.
Dustin Hoffman played Benjamin Braddock in the 1967 film (Photo-YouTube/Studiocanal)[Missing Credit]
Hoffman writes: “But he was still unhappy with what he was seeing. (I, too, was increasingly unhappy.) Mike sounded almost innocent when he asked the Westmores, “Now, what are we going to do about the nose?”
“I remember thinking, They’re trying to take the Jew off my face, and it ain’t going to happen. All I wanted to do was go home, to ethnic New York, where I belonged. I knew I was no leading man. I knew my place.”
Although Nichols had been supportive and encouraging during rehearsals, Hoffman says the director's manner changed dramatically once filming began. He describes him as “an entirely different person”, whose mood was often unpredictable and “frequently sour”.
The actor, then 30, says he was left “in a state of constant anxiety”, regularly convinced that he was about to lose the role.
He also recalls: “Mike was irritable with everyone, but with me a certain sadism seemed to creep in.”
In one particularly incident, co-star Katharine Ross was instructed to slap Hoffman repeatedly during a scene in which Benjamin reveals to Elaine that he has been having an affair with her mother, Mrs Robinson, played by Anne Bancroft.
“Mike just kept telling Katharine to hit me, to hit me harder,” Hoffman says.
Ross was concerned about hurting him, but Hoffman reassured her: “I’m OK. Just don’t hit my ear.”
She missed several times, leaving him dizzy after 27 takes. Despite the ordeal, the scene was ultimately edited without the slapping.
The following day, Hoffman suffered another injury while filming an underwater sequence in a swimming pool. After being held beneath the surface in his scuba suit, he emerged with blood coming from his ear.
“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 writes.
The physical strain extended to other members of the cast. Bancroft fainted while filming in intense California heat and required oxygen, while Hoffman was pushed to exhaustion.
“We did it over and over and over again, until I was absolutely trashed from exhaustion and dehydration,” he recounts. “I remember lying down in the grass in front of the church because I thought I was going to lose consciousness.”
Despite the film becoming a cinematic landmark, Hoffman said: “It was a terrible experience making the movie that changed my life.”
“The whole time, I felt Mike was angry at me, either because I was doing something wrong or because he had realised what everybody else already knew, that he had miscast the lead in his film,” he continued.
However, Hoffman believes he has since come to understand the director's behaviour through Nichols's own Jewish experience.
Nichols, born Mikhail Igor Peschkowsky, fled Nazi Germany with his family in 1939, arriving in America as a seven-year-old who spoke no English.
Despite later adopting an outwardly affluent, WASP lifestyle, he remained deeply conscious of his identity and his experience as an outsider.
Hoffman suggests that Benjamin was, in many ways, Nichols's own reflection. The director eventually acknowledged that he had unconsciously made the character Jewish.
Hoffman describes the film as a “self-portrait” for Nichols.
“He was looking for an alter ego – that’s why Benjamin had taken years to cast, and maybe that’s why he was so hard on me. I was a stand-in, there to absorb Mike’s own self-loathing,” explained Hoffman.
The film went on to receive seven Academy Award nominations, with Nichols winning the Oscar for Best Director in 1968. Hoffman received his first Academy Award nomination for his performance.
Hoffman’s memoir, Look at Me, is due to be published on 10 November.
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