Dustin Hoffman calls The Graduate shoot 'terrible' — SkimNews
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- Dustin Hoffman called the making of The Graduate “a terrible experience,” while saying the 1967 film “changed my life”; the movie received seven Oscar nominations and Mike Nichols won best director.
- Dustin Hoffman said he felt “immediately uncomfortable, unworthy” as a Jewish actor playing Ben Braddock, the “ultimate Wasp,” and did not want to audition; in makeup, he thought Nichols was trying to “take the Jew off my face.”
- Mike Nichols was “frequently sour” and irritable with everyone after weeks of rehearsals, while Hoffman said “a certain sadism seemed to creep in” when Nichols was directing him.
- Katharine Ross slapped Hoffman 27 times in Elaine’s room as Nichols urged her to hit harder; Ross worried about hurting him, and Hoffman was dizzy by the end of the unused scene.
- Dustin Hoffman said the next day’s underwater filming, combined with the previous day’s slaps, left him with a punctured eardrum and blood trickling from his ear.
- Anne Bancroft fainted during a hot-day scene and had to be resuscitated with oxygen; Hoffman also repeated a scene running from his car to a church until he was exhausted and dehydrated.
- Look at Me will be published on November 10; in it, Hoffman suggests Nichols cast him as an alter ego and describes him as a “stand-in” for Nichols’ own self-loathing.
Why it matters: For readers, the November 10 release of Look at Me adds Hoffman’s firsthand account to the legacy of a film with seven Oscar nominations and Nichols’ best-director win. His details—27 slaps, a punctured eardrum and repeated exhaustion—shift attention from the movie’s polish to the production’s human cost.
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