Dustin Hoffman: I'm a Freak Accident - Sitcoms Online Message Boards

Brian · 04-28-2003, 11:26 PM

http://www.cnn.com/2003/SHOWBIZ/Movi....ap/index.html

Dustin Hoffman: 'I'm a freak accident'
Benjamin, Ratso, Rain Man, yet still looking for 'Confidence'
Monday, April 28, 2003 Posted: 4:41 PM EDT (2041 GMT)

LOS ANGELES, California (AP) -- Assessing a long weekend of interviews to promote his new film "Confidence," Dustin Hoffman decides he's given only one decent response to the many questions asked.

A reporter asked Hoffman if he himself were confident. Hoffman's answer: When he comes to a one-way street, he looks both ways before crossing -- whereas a confident man looks only in the direction from which traffic flows.

"That was my one good answer all weekend," Hoffman recalls.

Hoffman seriously underestimates his gift for gab, though. More so than perhaps any other Hollywood star, Hoffman plays the raconteur when chatting with reporters, offering personal asides, historical trivia and ribald anecdotes while discussing his current movie.

"There is nothing more fun than talking to Dustin Hoffman, whether for 10 minutes or 10 hours," says Edward Burns, who plays a con man in "Confidence" whose gang reluctantly finds itself pulling a job for crime boss Hoffman. "He's unrelenting. It's one great story after another."

Many celebrities settle on short, quotable sound-bite answers and offer them up repeatedly in interview after interview. Hoffman will rattle on for 15 minutes to answer a single question.

"Cut me off anywhere you want here. I can't help it," Hoffman advises early in an interview. "I don't know how to do two-sentence answers. I'd love to be the guy that's asked, 'How do you feel?' and says, 'Good.' Then on to the next question. That is our culture now, isn't it? Sound bites."

Breaking the mold

Hoffman, 65, has run counter to Hollywood expectations since his film debut in Mike Nichols' "The Graduate" in 1967. At 30, he was old for a rookie movie actor. Until then, he had been a stage performer who disdained scripts that came his way because he wanted to remain in theater.

And he broke the mold of the tall, generically handsome leading man, opening the door for such movie stars as Jack Nicholson, Al Pacino and Robert De Niro.

"The truth of the matter is, I'm a freak accident," says Hoffman, going on to detail the character descriptions he encountered for Hollywood auditions before "The Graduate."

"They tell you, here's the parts available: Arthur, 35, smokes a pipe, leading man. His wife, beautiful, wears diaphanous gowns, leading. Daughter, ingenue, the word means she's beautiful. Next to that is character juvenile; that's her ugly girlfriend, to give her contrast. Same is true of juvenile male, good-looking. And character juvenile, that's the part I could go for.

"Mike Nichols changes everything and makes the character juvenile the leading juvenile, who then becomes, because the movie works, a version of what Hollywood euphemistically calls a leading man."

In the years since, Hoffman has taken wild turns in screen roles, among them the seedy Ratso Rizzo in "Midnight Cowboy," the Custer's Last Stand survivor in "Little Big Man," the academic-turned-vigilante in "Straw Dogs," the cross-dressing actor of "Tootsie" and Tom Cruise's autistic brother in "Rain Man," which earned Hoffman his second Academy Award (the first came for "Kramer vs. Kramer").

Hoffman's had his share of commercial and critical flops, including "Ishtar," "Sphere" and "The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc," in which he had a small role as Joan's conscience.

The latter two followed 1997's "Wag the Dog," which earned Hoffman the most recent of his seven Oscar nominations. After that came one of Hoffman's periodic retreats from film.

People he wants to work with
Sometimes, Hoffman has filled the gaps between films with returns to the stage. The last few years, he's been developing a couple of screenplays with the idea of directing and starring in them himself.

Developing his own projects is a necessity as he ages to avoid becoming marginalized into older, peripheral characters. As a concession to the young audience that drives Hollywood, one of Hoffman's scripts would pair him with a much-younger actress.

"Yes, you wake up one morning and you say, 'Oh, there's less scripts available, because I'm now 65,' " Hoffman says. "Kids make up the first weekend at the box office. I don't know if they're going to run in there the first weekend to see a movie that concentrates on a 55-year-old man and a 45-year-old woman that fall in love."

Hoffman is in the midst of a flurry of films that began with last fall's "Moonlight Mile." This fall, he co-stars with Gene Hackman and John Cusack in the John Grisham thriller "The Runaway Jury." Early next year, he appears in "J.M. Barrie's Neverland," starring Johnny Depp as the children's author who created "Peter Pan."

The character Hoffman plays in "Confidence," directed by James Foley ("Glengarry Glen Ross"), originally was written for a menacing, 250-pound brute. When they learned Hoffman was interested, Foley and Burns were eager to switch the character to accommodate the compact actor.

"I think the brilliant thing Dustin did was that on the page, that character would sort of intimidate my character physically," Burns said. "But this being a con movie, it's all about mind games, so Dustin figured out ways for his bad guy to mess with people's minds and intimidate them that way."

Hoffman says he has streamlined his criteria for choosing roles nowadays. It's no longer about whom he gets to play but whom he gets to work with, people such as Foley, Depp and "Neverland" director Marc Forster, who made "Monster's Ball."

"There are huge mistakes in life, and I realized one of mine was that I should have worked with a lot of people that I had a chance to work with in the past but didn't," Hoffman says. "I just said, I'm not even going to look at the script anymore or the part. I want to get in the room with people I want to work with. ... That's my only criterion now."

isiahthomas · 05-02-2003, 11:29 AM

I saw previews for Confidence when i saw A Man Apart. It looks alright. I loved Dustin in Rain Man. I can watch that movie over & over again. I get my boxer shorts from Kmart in Cincinnati hahahahahahahahahaha. Then Tom Cruise says it doesn't matter where u buy underwear, underwear is underwear wherever u buy it, whether it's in Cincinnati or wherever LOL. I also like the part when Dustin was slappin himself upside the head when Tom tried to get him on the airplane hahahahahahahahaha. Man i love Rain Man. I also like Dustin in Dick Tracy with Warren Beatty. Wasn't his name Mumbles in that movie? I saw Dustin in Family Business with Matthew Broderick & Sean Connery. That movie is one of the most boring films i've ever seen.

04-28-2003, 11:26 PM	#1
Brian Member Forum Celebrity Join Date: Jun 23, 2001 Posts: 20,451	Dustin Hoffman: I'm a Freak Accident http://www.cnn.com/2003/SHOWBIZ/Movi....ap/index.html Dustin Hoffman: 'I'm a freak accident' Benjamin, Ratso, Rain Man, yet still looking for 'Confidence' Monday, April 28, 2003 Posted: 4:41 PM EDT (2041 GMT) LOS ANGELES, California (AP) -- Assessing a long weekend of interviews to promote his new film "Confidence," Dustin Hoffman decides he's given only one decent response to the many questions asked. A reporter asked Hoffman if he himself were confident. Hoffman's answer: When he comes to a one-way street, he looks both ways before crossing -- whereas a confident man looks only in the direction from which traffic flows. "That was my one good answer all weekend," Hoffman recalls. Hoffman seriously underestimates his gift for gab, though. More so than perhaps any other Hollywood star, Hoffman plays the raconteur when chatting with reporters, offering personal asides, historical trivia and ribald anecdotes while discussing his current movie. "There is nothing more fun than talking to Dustin Hoffman, whether for 10 minutes or 10 hours," says Edward Burns, who plays a con man in "Confidence" whose gang reluctantly finds itself pulling a job for crime boss Hoffman. "He's unrelenting. It's one great story after another." Many celebrities settle on short, quotable sound-bite answers and offer them up repeatedly in interview after interview. Hoffman will rattle on for 15 minutes to answer a single question. "Cut me off anywhere you want here. I can't help it," Hoffman advises early in an interview. "I don't know how to do two-sentence answers. I'd love to be the guy that's asked, 'How do you feel?' and says, 'Good.' Then on to the next question. That is our culture now, isn't it? Sound bites." Breaking the mold Hoffman, 65, has run counter to Hollywood expectations since his film debut in Mike Nichols' "The Graduate" in 1967. At 30, he was old for a rookie movie actor. Until then, he had been a stage performer who disdained scripts that came his way because he wanted to remain in theater. And he broke the mold of the tall, generically handsome leading man, opening the door for such movie stars as Jack Nicholson, Al Pacino and Robert De Niro. "The truth of the matter is, I'm a freak accident," says Hoffman, going on to detail the character descriptions he encountered for Hollywood auditions before "The Graduate." "They tell you, here's the parts available: Arthur, 35, smokes a pipe, leading man. His wife, beautiful, wears diaphanous gowns, leading. Daughter, ingenue, the word means she's beautiful. Next to that is character juvenile; that's her ugly girlfriend, to give her contrast. Same is true of juvenile male, good-looking. And character juvenile, that's the part I could go for. "Mike Nichols changes everything and makes the character juvenile the leading juvenile, who then becomes, because the movie works, a version of what Hollywood euphemistically calls a leading man." In the years since, Hoffman has taken wild turns in screen roles, among them the seedy Ratso Rizzo in "Midnight Cowboy," the Custer's Last Stand survivor in "Little Big Man," the academic-turned-vigilante in "Straw Dogs," the cross-dressing actor of "Tootsie" and Tom Cruise's autistic brother in "Rain Man," which earned Hoffman his second Academy Award (the first came for "Kramer vs. Kramer"). Hoffman's had his share of commercial and critical flops, including "Ishtar," "Sphere" and "The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc," in which he had a small role as Joan's conscience. The latter two followed 1997's "Wag the Dog," which earned Hoffman the most recent of his seven Oscar nominations. After that came one of Hoffman's periodic retreats from film. People he wants to work with Sometimes, Hoffman has filled the gaps between films with returns to the stage. The last few years, he's been developing a couple of screenplays with the idea of directing and starring in them himself. Developing his own projects is a necessity as he ages to avoid becoming marginalized into older, peripheral characters. As a concession to the young audience that drives Hollywood, one of Hoffman's scripts would pair him with a much-younger actress. "Yes, you wake up one morning and you say, 'Oh, there's less scripts available, because I'm now 65,' " Hoffman says. "Kids make up the first weekend at the box office. I don't know if they're going to run in there the first weekend to see a movie that concentrates on a 55-year-old man and a 45-year-old woman that fall in love." Hoffman is in the midst of a flurry of films that began with last fall's "Moonlight Mile." This fall, he co-stars with Gene Hackman and John Cusack in the John Grisham thriller "The Runaway Jury." Early next year, he appears in "J.M. Barrie's Neverland," starring Johnny Depp as the children's author who created "Peter Pan." The character Hoffman plays in "Confidence," directed by James Foley ("Glengarry Glen Ross"), originally was written for a menacing, 250-pound brute. When they learned Hoffman was interested, Foley and Burns were eager to switch the character to accommodate the compact actor. "I think the brilliant thing Dustin did was that on the page, that character would sort of intimidate my character physically," Burns said. "But this being a con movie, it's all about mind games, so Dustin figured out ways for his bad guy to mess with people's minds and intimidate them that way." Hoffman says he has streamlined his criteria for choosing roles nowadays. It's no longer about whom he gets to play but whom he gets to work with, people such as Foley, Depp and "Neverland" director Marc Forster, who made "Monster's Ball." "There are huge mistakes in life, and I realized one of mine was that I should have worked with a lot of people that I had a chance to work with in the past but didn't," Hoffman says. "I just said, I'm not even going to look at the script anymore or the part. I want to get in the room with people I want to work with. ... That's my only criterion now."

05-02-2003, 11:29 AM	#2
isiahthomas Member Forum Fanatic Join Date: Aug 20, 2002 Location: Cleveland, Ohio Posts: 10,704	I saw previews for Confidence when i saw A Man Apart. It looks alright. I loved Dustin in Rain Man. I can watch that movie over & over again. I get my boxer shorts from Kmart in Cincinnati hahahahahahahahahaha. Then Tom Cruise says it doesn't matter where u buy underwear, underwear is underwear wherever u buy it, whether it's in Cincinnati or wherever LOL. I also like the part when Dustin was slappin himself upside the head when Tom tried to get him on the airplane hahahahahahahahaha. Man i love Rain Man. I also like Dustin in Dick Tracy with Warren Beatty. Wasn't his name Mumbles in that movie? I saw Dustin in Family Business with Matthew Broderick & Sean Connery. That movie is one of the most boring films i've ever seen.