Dustin Hoffman

Presenter0:00

Hello, I'm Kirsty Young. Thank you for downloading this podcast of Desert Island Discs from BBC Radio 4. For rights reasons the music choices are shorter than in the radio broadcast.

Presenter0:10

For more information about the programme, please visit bbc.co.uk/slash radio four.

Presenter0:34

My castaway this week is Dustin Hoffman.

Presenter0:37

In spite of his Aunt Pearl telling him he wasn't good looking enough to be an actor, he has for forty five years been crafting landmark movie performances. He is that rare and apparently contradictory thing, a character actor and a superstar. The Graduate, Midnight Cowboy, Lenny, All the President's Men, Marathon Man, Kramer v. Kramer, Tootsie, Rainman, Wag the Dog, Last Chance Harvey.

Presenter1:01

The years pass and the hits keep coming, these just a handful of the movies that contribute to an unparalleled body of work. He is the only actor in history to have top billing in three films that won Best Picture Oscars. Now in his mid seventies, his directorial debut is the movie Quartet, about love, regrets, aging, and creativity, as funny as it is poignant.

Presenter1:24

He says lots of smart, quotable, apposite things. Among them, I'm always fighting to break through. I'm trying to show you the part of me that wants to love, wants to kill, that wants to find my way out, that feels there is no way out. So forty five years of making movies then, Dustin Hoffman. Um for you this is the first time behind the camera. What took you so long?

Dustin Hoffman1:48

Well I d I don't think thirty five, forty years is that long to make this decision if you had my demons. I actually directed actors when I started studying acting. Uh for some reason they found that I could give them notes, though I thought I was going to become a director at that point. But no one offered me any directing parts and it's very hard to audition as a director.

Presenter2:12

You said because of my demons it it's amazing that it hasn't taken longer, but give me a glimpse of w what what do you mean has stopped you?

Dustin Hoffman2:18

Uh

Dustin Hoffman2:20

I think that I really believe that I was a freak accident when I became famous after the graduate. It wasn't meant to be. My friends, Gene Hackman and Bob Duval, we all just hoped to make a living doing what we did. And since God gave me this crazy gift, I felt I wasn't entitled to be able to do anything else. And that's the truth. I know it sounds very strange, but I didn't want to push the envelope.

Presenter2:52

So when you are saying it was an accident, and you listen to me reading out all those

Presenter2:57

HIP MOVIES What's Going Through Your Head?

Dustin Hoffman3:00

Uh the actual thing that went through my head is that uh it doesn't sound like enough to me.

Dustin Hoffman3:09

There's a depressing side to it, is that it sounds like a eulogy sometimes and it you're finished. Uh great career, good job, good night and good luck and one wants to think that it's just uh the first act.

Presenter3:14

Okay.

Presenter3:25

Uh you are by all accounts heroically foul-mouthed when the mood takes you. Are you gonna are you gonna talk clean today for the BBC?

Dustin Hoffman3:31

It depends on what you demand.

Presenter3:35

Your music you gave us a list of fourteen you know it's just eight.

Dustin Hoffman3:39

Yes, I would have given more.

Presenter3:40

Okay, I'm forcing you to do eight. Then tell us about the first disc that we're going to hear this morning then, Dustin.

Dustin Hoffman3:44

I chose La Bamba because it's one of the things I found out I could do on the set to keep loose. So I taught myself to jump rope like a boxer and I would put somehow I'd heard Labamba once, Richie Valence, and I put it on a cassette and put my earphones on and I could jump rope. I remember on Tootsie I think I could I bet the crew that I could jump 45 minutes and I made some money. But anyone who jumps rope, this will help you along.

Speaker 44:19

I'm not sure if I can do it.

Speaker 44:23

Una coca degras ya pa pati ya ha ri beya ri va.

Speaker 44:36

You're not fighting anymore.

Speaker 44:39

I'm not sure if I can do it.

Presenter4:44

That was Richie Valenzan La Bamba. And you said going into that, Dustin Hoffman, that you used to do it, especially on Tutsi, you would do it. You weren't in the dress when you were doing skipping. No, no, no.

Dustin Hoffman4:50

Skipping because that would have been impressive. I wasn't in Heels either.

Presenter4:55

Um, you once said when I first went into acting, I didn't like myself very much. I didn't really know who I was. I'm I'm imagining you're over that now.

Dustin Hoffman5:03

No, uh

Presenter5:05

No?

Dustin Hoffman5:05

I wish I could say I was. Uh I don't dislike myself. I've I've learned that I don't have any choice uh but to live with myself. But I I do think

Dustin Hoffman5:16

Quite frankly, that you spend a lifetime trying to figure out who you are.

Dustin Hoffman5:21

You know, I think Albert Brooks made a film about that, is that you die, you go to heaven, and God lets you watch your entire life on the screen. And my fantasy has been that when you die, you go to heaven and God tells you everything you thought was correct about yourself but wasn't.

Presenter5:39

How did it feel to be behind the camera, uh c confidently, I'm presuming?

Dustin Hoffman5:43

Yes, and the reason is that actors that have been doing film as long as I have, we are all directors. I mean, we direct each other as actors when once the director turns us back. That part of it was easy, particularly when you're u working with people like Courtney and Maggie Smith and Gambone and Pauline Collins and Billy Connell, even Sheridan Smith. The better the actor, the less work you have to do. What humbled me was that throughout forty-five years I didn't realize that everything goes wrong on a day-to-day basis and the director smiles when you show up in the morning and you don't know that he just lost a location, that he was refused extra money to do this or that or the other. And that's what I was not prepared for.

Presenter6:24

You listed some of the actors that you were well, I was going to use the phrase dealing with. That might not be fair. How did you get on directing that bunch? Did they not pretty much just direct themselves?

Dustin Hoffman6:32

Well, uh that's what an actor uh should do, but I think what you do as a director is if I had to find a metaphor, I have kids, we raised five kids and uh and the parent uh I think that you want to be is that you let them go, but you're close enough to catch'em if they fall. And I think that's basically what you the best you can do as a director, is that you're guiding them. And if they're missing it, you just kind of catch them and suggest something to take them closer t to that point where, you know, they're walking on their own.

Presenter7:04

Let's have some more music. Tell me about your second disc of the morning. What is it?

Dustin Hoffman7:07

It's called Cement Mixer and it's the first song I remember if it's nineteen forty-five that makes me about eight years old in which I really laughed.

Speaker 47:15

Team and mix from putty putty.

Speaker 47:19

Seaman mix of potty potty, seamen mix of potty potty

Speaker 47:27

A punny punny, punny booze, puny puppy, booze and I seem it mixed up punchy punsy.

Dustin Hoffman7:31

Female Speaker 2

Speaker 47:34

Seemed mixed up put the putty.

Speaker 47:38

Seemant to make them put the punchy.

Speaker 47:43

A muffle jaws, uh, pickle jaws, woofy.

Presenter7:47

That was Cement Mixer by Slim Gaylord, still making you smile. Did you learn all the words to that, Dustin Hoffman?

Dustin Hoffman7:52

Not all of them. I don't think I've ever learned all the words to any song, and that's another one of my demons. I think Slim Gaylor also wrote another song which I learned and sang at that time, which was called Open the Door, Richard. Open the Door, Richard. Open that door and let me in. So he was a great artist, I think.

Presenter8:11

You've described yourself as a spiritual New Yorker, but you were in fact born in LA. As you said, it was nineteen thirty seven. Your father spent a little bit of time, at least, working at Columbia Pictures. Tell me about your dad. What was he like?

Dustin Hoffman8:17

There was

Dustin Hoffman8:22

Uh my father was a a very serious young man who had uh

Dustin Hoffman8:28

I guess what turned out to be delusions of grandeur or whatever, because he came to LA from Chicago with no money and I think $50, which was probably a lot of money during the Depression, with my older brother, my mother, and her mother, and I wasn't born yet. I have a photograph of him helping to build one of the freeways in Los Angeles with his shirt off and holding a shovel with a bunch of other guys. But somehow he was able to, he had a lot of drive to get himself to Columbia Pictures before I was born. And he got a job as an assistant prop man and then a prop man and then an assistant set decorator and a set decorator. And then he was fired for reasons I've never learned. He wanted to be a director. This is all told to me much later. He spent his lunchtimes watching Frank Capra direct. And he loved Frank Capra.

Speaker 49:14

Right.

Dustin Hoffman9:20

Then he was fired and he went from set decorating into selling furniture. And he was Willie Lohman in a sense. And it's one of the reasons I wanted to do Death of a Salesman.

Presenter9:27

Yeah.

Presenter9:30

When you did it on Broadway indeed, to great acclaim, he he came to watch.

Dustin Hoffman9:34

He came to see it, and I was very nervous. These are good questions, Christy. And I was very nervous, and he came back I was hoping he wouldn't put it together, you know, that I was making a comment on him. And the first thing he said to me in the make up room, he says, Boy, that guy is some loser.

Speaker 49:46

Yeah.

Presenter9:52

Oh

Presenter9:54

I've never

Dustin Hoffman9:54

I've never forgotten that.

Presenter9:56

Were you able to look? Did you look away? Did you? How did you that's a very poignant moment, isn't it? Yes.

Dustin Hoffman9:58

Uh that's fine.

Dustin Hoffman10:00

Yes. My father d didn't have a a happy time of it. Uh as you said, I'm foul mouthed and uh I'll I'll say a word you may uh uh blip off from the B B C, but uh we had the same birthday. So uh when I was fifty he was eighty.

Speaker 410:11

Yeah.

Presenter10:11

Uh

Dustin Hoffman10:18

And we were walking on the beach actually and we stopped and I said, Dad, you're eighty to day and I'm fifty. Do you have any words uh you can give me? And he looked at me and he said, Yeah, it's all bullshit.

Dustin Hoffman10:30

And he turned around and walked away.

Presenter10:32

So he lived as a sort of thwarted man, did he? He he had anger in him.

Dustin Hoffman10:35

Yeah.

Presenter10:36

And as a little boy, you you were the funny guy. You were the guy in class who would make people laugh. Is that is that right?

Dustin Hoffman10:42

Well, it's a kind way of putting it.

Dustin Hoffman10:45

I was a very bad student, and in those days I would be called you are you're you're a real comedian, which was a nice way of saying you're a loser.

Presenter10:51

Which was a nice way of saying you're a loser.

Dustin Hoffman10:54

Oh, to say the least.

Presenter10:56

Y your family's f well, your father's fortunes as a salesman, and indeed th you know, this will hit home with plenty of people who are salespeople, you know, life goes up, life goes down. So you would move in and out of neighbourhoods. Y you moved to schools a lot. That's a significant thing for a child to move schools a lot.

Dustin Hoffman11:10

I didn't think of it.

Dustin Hoffman11:12

Are you a therapist? Because I need one in London when I

Presenter11:16

Anytime, anytime, for free.

Dustin Hoffman11:16

Anytime.

Dustin Hoffman11:18

Yeah.

Presenter11:19

What what was the impact on you though?

Dustin Hoffman11:20

Yeah.

Presenter11:21

Yeah.

Dustin Hoffman11:21

Yeah. The reason for it was, which I didn't know at the time, is my father was always dreaming of being uh living a lifestyle which wasn't real. Uh he didn't have the money to move to Beverly Hills and he and he we would move to Beverly Hills and he lasted six months before he went bankrupt and then we'd move somewhere else. And he was tr always trying to improve his lot in life. This is fascinating uh a character of my father.

Presenter11:47

Let's have some music. We're on your third. What are we gonna hear?

Dustin Hoffman11:50

Well, this is Otis Redding. I just remember driving to work every day to make the graduate and every morning I went to work there was not a morning that passed that I didn't hear sitting on the dock of the bay. And I still love it with all my heart.

Speaker 412:05

Sitting in a moment

Speaker 412:10

I'll be sitting

Speaker 412:12

Yeah.

Speaker 412:15

Watching the ships roll me

Speaker 412:19

And I watch him roll away

Speaker 412:24

Sitting on a docker

Speaker 412:27

Watching the time

Speaker 412:34

Yeah.

Presenter12:35

That was the dock of the day and Otis Redding of course seeing it there. Um if your school records are to be trusted, Dustin Hoffman, you were meant to be a failure. Um I'm wondering what went wrong then?

Dustin Hoffman12:45

Well, I couldn't fix my concentration in school, and I think that was somehow implanted in me, because now there's nothing more that I love than reading and learning. And at in those days, somehow by the time I got to school it had come out of my home that I knew nothing. That was my lot. It was kind of the stereotype that was placed on me. And and you learn later in therapy that you get your love from your parents by being what they want you to be.

Presenter13:16

And you had this perfect brother.

Dustin Hoffman13:18

I uh I was the opposite of my brother.

Presenter13:20

And so be do you think it was because you were not him, you had to be the opposite? You weren't allowed to be whatever you were going to be by your parents?

Dustin Hoffman13:20

Uh

Dustin Hoffman13:27

I don't know. I know that uh uh maybe th maybe it started because my father and my mother wanted and expected a girl and I wasn't a girl, so they didn't even have a name for me, and I think they picked the name out of a magazine.

Presenter13:42

'Cause you were named after a movie actor.

Dustin Hoffman13:43

Dustin Farnum.

Presenter13:45

Yeah.

Dustin Hoffman13:45

And then somehow they decided I was a sickly baby because I weighed so little at birth and I had operations, some of them and some medical procedures that really weren't needed. I remember selling newspapers on the corner in the middle of the street as you do when I was about 12 years old. And once a week a nurse would come and I have to put the papers down and go sit in the car and she'd give me an injection. I don't know what it was. And also I couldn't have lunch at school. I came from an interesting family. I had to bike home and eat the lunch that was prepared for me. And it was usually calf sprains or kidneys or something. I've seen photographs of myself and I look fine. I was just thin and short.

Presenter14:33

Do you feel like somebody who's survived your parents? You know, who who survived the way they parented you?

Dustin Hoffman14:39

Yes, I would say barely survived.

Presenter14:43

Because you you mentioned their therapy and you've you know you've not been shy about saying there are times in your life when you spent a lot of time talking. Has it been helpful?

Dustin Hoffman14:50

Yes, I would say it's it's the imperative of of of it's save me. I I guess therapist

Dustin Hoffman14:59

I do believe in the conscious and the subconscious and the unconscious.

Dustin Hoffman15:07

Anything that's not the conscious you try to repress or suppress because it they're painful. And I do believe that you keep those traumas until you work through them.

Presenter15:18

I'm I'm I'm thinking about you sitting around the dinner table and suddenly it comes out of your mouth, you say, I want to be an actor and your Aunt Pearl says, you can't be an actor because you're not good looking enough to be an actor

Dustin Hoffman15:28

I think she said ugly actually.

Presenter15:30

Oh no cap.

Presenter15:32

They could do a whole programme on your Aunt Pearl, obviously, but uh you went to the Pasadena Playhouse, which was a very noted uh crucible for young actors. So what was it that gave you the nerve to just power yourself in there?

Dustin Hoffman15:42

Well, I went to a junior college after high school, and that's where you went if you didn't have grades to get in university. And I was failing in my first year, and a friend of mine there said, Well, why don't you take acting? And I said, I have no interest in acting. And they said, But it's three credits, and nobody flunks acting. It's like Jim. And I took an acting class, and it was the first time I could study, rehearse, learn lines, anything without looking at my watch. Five, six hours flew by like it was 20 minutes. And I said, Okay, I'm going to be an actor. I'd heard about the Pascina Playhouse. I talked my parents into funding it for me. But there was a certain point in class where I looked around. There was about 20 kids, and I said, I may be the best one here. And that was the first time I had a feeling that maybe.

Dustin Hoffman16:33

Maybe I'm not bad. Not that I'm good, but maybe I'm not bad.

Presenter16:37

Time for some music. We're on your force. T tell me about this.

Dustin Hoffman16:40

Frimfram sauce. I never heard it until Diana Kroll sang it, and it had the line in it, which you'll hear, called Shafafa on the side. And since I didn't want to eat when I was growing up, it was a tense table, I would be told to eat this particular dish that they gave me because it had shafaffa, and that meant it was delicious. And I didn't know that it came from a song. And when I heard it just three or four years ago, I hadn't heard the word shafafa in 70 years, and I just burst out crying. And my wife came in and said, What are you crying about? I said, Shuffafa.

Speaker 317:21

I don't want French fried potatoes, red ripe tomatoes.

Dustin Hoffman17:25

Bye.

Speaker 317:27

I'm never satisfied.

Speaker 317:30

I want the framp frames sauce with the aux and fade with chafafa on the side.

Speaker 317:38

I don't want work chops and bacon that won't awaken.

Speaker 317:44

My appetite inside

Speaker 317:47

I want the frimp framesauce with the

Presenter17:50

That was Frim Fram Sauce and Dinah Kral. It's a long time then, Dustin Hoffman, since you slept next to Gene Hackman's refrigerator in this one and a half room apartment that he had. You'd gone to New York, of course, to to not to make your fortune as an actor, but just to be, to work as an actor.

Dustin Hoffman18:00

You

Dustin Hoffman18:06

Study, actually. I met Gene at the Pasina Playhouse. He had just come out of the Marines, and he was kicked out of the playhouse for not having any talent after three months. And I think the reason was that he was such a naturalistic actor that it didn't look like acting. And I thought in those days it should look like acting. He said, Come to New York when you finish, and I did. And I indeed slept on his floor because he only had one bedroom for him and his wife. But he was hoping that I would only stay three, four days, and they couldn't get rid of me because I was so frightened of New York. It was August of 58. He had a friend by the name of Bob Duval and introduced us because Bob was looking for an apartment. It was a wonderful time because.

Presenter18:07

Right.

Dustin Hoffman18:50

Again, it was a beat generation day, and there was no expectation of getting employment. And we really did think, and I still believe it in a way, that the actors that are the least talented are the ones that get jobs off of auditions. And the reason for that is casting directors and directors are fearful of making a mistake in the casting, so they kind of will pick the derivative. And if you were original, then you didn't have a chance.

Presenter19:21

Given that you had a sort of shaky sense of your own self and self-worth, how did you deal with all the rejection? Because of course being an actor is is is constant rejection.

Dustin Hoffman19:29

Yes, in fact we all got to the point where you know y you have an 8x10 picture of yourself and on the other side is your resume which we would lie about. We acted here, we acted there, we never had acted anywhere. But it got to the point where it was so painful we would knock on the door of the casting director, slip the eight by ten underneath the door and leave.

Presenter19:53

I mean, I have a strong sense of what you, you know, of you trying to make your way. And I've I've read a lot about you as a young actor. I don't have any sense of what your personal life was like then. What were you like?

Dustin Hoffman20:03

Well, Bob Duval and I both agreed that the reason we went into acting was to meet girls. I never went to the prom in high school. I was short, filled with acne, literally told I was unattractive. I didn't have any girlfriends. And when I took that acting class in junior college and did a scene and they told you who to work with, you picked it out of a hat. And I had to play the gentleman caller in Glass Menagerie, and there was some girl who played Laura.

Presenter20:08

See you.

Speaker 420:33

Yeah.

Dustin Hoffman20:33

Right. Yeah.

Speaker 420:33

Yeah.

Dustin Hoffman20:34

And we did the scene in class, and suddenly this.

Dustin Hoffman20:37

Beautiful girl comes up to me who hadn't, you know, given me a glance for three months and said, Do you want to do a scene together? And

Presenter20:45

She sort of thought you were, Mr. O'Connor. There you are now. You've been coming out.

Dustin Hoffman20:48

Something, yes. And that's continued. And that was a way in, no pun intended.

Presenter20:54

I'm glad you pointed it out, though. Okay, time for some music. We're on your fifth of the morning, Dustin Hoffman. Tell me about this.

Dustin Hoffman21:00

Well, when I was uh doing my first summer stock in New York, I was about 22 years old, and I did have a girlfriend that I met in acting class. And uh I walked in one night and I saw that she was making out with my acting teacher, and it devastated me. I was shaken, to say the least, and I would

Dustin Hoffman21:22

hang out by myself, and there was a terrible upright piano somewhere backstage, and I would just sit at that piano all day long fooling around, and somehow this song came out.

Dustin Hoffman21:32

And

Dustin Hoffman21:34

Years pass and Bette Midler's doing a special on T V and she calls me up. She says, I need a star. She says, or they won't let me do this special. I said, well, I wrote a song. Why don't you sing it? She says, well, do you have the words? I said, I never wrote the words. She says, all right, I'll write the words. And she wrote the words and I got to play the piano and Bette sang the song. It's singularly the best memory I have of being successful.

Speaker 422:07

We were ten about to start on their great adventure.

Dustin Hoffman22:13

Ready?

Speaker 422:18

How they refer to life.

Speaker 422:25

Priest said I'd be slow and twice.

Presenter22:37

That was Shoot the Breeze, words by Bette Midler, and the tune, The Beautiful Tune, by my castaway Dustin Hoffman. Now I want to talk to you about well, this is your phrase, the year that you plummeted to stardom, it's a great phrase, and you made the graduate in 1967, it became a phenomenon in 1968. It must surely have been an uncomfortable moment for you to become the spokesperson for a disaffected generation.

Dustin Hoffman23:00

Well, yes, uh but for other reasons, because uh i it didn't break the record in terms of my my former opinion of myself. I felt that Nicholls felt he had made a mistake while we were shooting. The character's name was Benjamin Braddock. It was from a book, and it said he was six feet tall, blond haired, blue eyed. It was Robert Redford.

Presenter23:19

Yeah, and Mike Nichols said to you, did he not? The thing you've got to understand is he's Jewish on the inside.

Dustin Hoffman23:24

Yes, I didn't want to audition for it. Again, I was we were all arrogant purists and we didn't want to be stars and we just wanted to be artists. And he calls me and he was the director.

Speaker 423:37

Yeah.

Dustin Hoffman23:37

And he said, why? I said, well, look at the, it's Robert Redford. I said, you know, I'm a character actor, but this is, I think, from the sublime to the ridiculous. And he said, why? Because you're Jewish? I said, yes, that's part of it. And this guy is ultra-wasp. And he said, did you find it funny? I said, very funny. It's wonderful. And he said, well, maybe he's Jewish inside. And that's what made me come out and test. I had to memorize this scene. I went out and tested with Catherine Ross. It went so badly that day.

Speaker 423:38

Uh

Presenter24:07

Let me just remind you. She says he looked about three feet tall, deadly serious, even totally humorless, and completely unkempt. All I could think was.

Dustin Hoffman24:08

She says

Presenter24:16

This is going to be a disaster.

Dustin Hoffman24:17

Yes. Yes. So did you. I haven't heard that before, but I would say it's accurate. So we're going through this day, and everyone is miserable. Nichols even takes me aside while we're testing and saying, well, why are you so nervous? Why are you so glum? I said, because I told you I'm not right for this. He said, but it was just a test. Just let's have fun. And he put his hand out to shake, and I shook his hand, and his hand was so wet and clammy because he was, my hand slipped out of it. And I thought, oh, God. They finished the film, and I learned later, years later, that they screened this film before it opened in screening rooms. And each time, people came up to them and said, What a great film you almost had, but it's a shame you miscast the lead. And so that was the perception, even though I didn't hear those words for years. But we opened to some mixed reviews. I remember there was one reviewer, and he called me a Cretan in print.

Presenter24:18

Yes, so did you.

Dustin Hoffman25:13

And you know, it was almost offensive to a large public that Nichols would do this. I mean, what Mike Nichols did, nobody else would have taken the chance and cast me in it. And when the film was finished, I went back to New York and I started auditions and flunked everyone, never got asked back, went on unemployment. Little do I know, they're cutting me into becoming a star. Little do we know that picture's going to be a phenomenon.

Presenter25:44

We're going to go to some music. There's so much I want to ask you, but you know, we've got to fit in the discs too. We're on our um sixth disc of the morning, Dustin Hoffman. Why have you chosen this one?

Dustin Hoffman25:53

It's How High the Moon. I did want to be a jazz pianist for years u until I had to realize I didn't have the talent. It's usually an up tempo.

Dustin Hoffman26:03

Piece of music, and suddenly I was listening to the radio just a few years ago, and this guy was singing it, and I filled up, I became emotional. It was the first time I really listened to the words because he sang it as a ballad. And I said, Wow, look at what an artist can do. Look how they can turn something around and make it their own and make it completely fresh.

Speaker 426:26

There is no moon above

Speaker 426:29

When love is far away to you

Speaker 426:38

Till it comes true.

Speaker 426:46

That you love me

Speaker 426:49

Where's our

Presenter26:57

That was How High the Moon Jon Hendricks with Dave Brubeck on piano.

Presenter27:01

I want to ask you about the diversity of your roles. You know, roles like Tootsie, Ratzo Rizzo and Midnight Cowboy. That's a very conscious thing for you, is it? The idea that you explore things that seem unlikely. You never really seem to want to get caught in a rut.

Dustin Hoffman27:03

Please.

Dustin Hoffman27:15

I don't know if I'd phrase it that way. It's not that I don't want to get caught in a rut. If I could have been a leading man, I would have jumped at it. I think Gene Hackman, Bob, we all would have. We just weren't considered leading men. In those days, if you went for auditions, they would list it in the backstage, which was the newspaper for actors, leading men, leading women, character-leading men, character-leading women, juveniles, character juvenile. That was what I was always sent out for. I said, gee, I like this part. No, that's the lead. You're a character juvenile, which meant you were the odd-looking one. You were the unattractive one, or character ingenue, because the juveniles and the ingenuous were beautiful, handsome. So in a sense, that's what we were claimed to be as character actors, and therefore that was just our lot.

Presenter28:05

I'm suddenly thinking of of you and and Gene Hackman. I'm sort of spooling forward in my mind. It's nineteen eighty nine and you're nominated, it would then be for your second Oscar, and you're in uh you're in the category with Gene Gene Hackman. You you've uh

Presenter28:17

You've been nominated for the first Oscar was Kramer v. Kramer, and then this was the second Oscar in nineteen eighty nine for Rainman, and you're both in the same category. Did something sort of pass between you that you know, as close as you were to then find yourselves all those years later in such a you know, at the pinnacle, both of you at the pinnacle of your profession?

Dustin Hoffman28:31

I don't recall. What I can tell you is that for whatever rhyme or reason, Duval and I have never been in a film together, and Hackman and I had never been in a film together. It just never worked out that way, until I did a film called Runaway Jury, which was a few years ago.

Dustin Hoffman28:51

It was the last day of shooting, and after we finished the scene, Gene and I went out, was in New Orleans, and we had a drink.

Dustin Hoffman28:59

And a second drink, and then a third drink, and then a fourth drink. And we admitted to each other how frightened we were that day because we thought, oh my god, it's a ten-page scene. What if I don't memorize it and I could we thought we would disappoint each other. But then he said something that stays with me, and it's the absolute truth. He looked at me and he said, So do you feel the same way I do? Dustbone, my nickname was Dustbone, after you finish a movie. And I said, What do you mean? And he says,

Dustin Hoffman29:29

That you'll never work again.

Dustin Hoffman29:32

And that is a real feeling.

Dustin Hoffman29:34

If you didn't grow up as a child star, if it took you years and years to get your first job, the feeling is is that this is your last one, you're not going to be asked again.

Presenter29:43

We've got to get some more music in, Dustin. We are now on your seventh.

Dustin Hoffman29:44

Please.

Dustin Hoffman29:47

Well, I was saying to you before, I've never seen this show. This will be the first time or heard this show, and I'm ashamed of myself. But I said to you that what a wonderful show this is. And I think what is going through my mind is that music is literally the spine of everyone's life. It's extraordinary how music hits us. So Memphis is chosen because I first heard it on a day I was particularly depressed. Not depressed, particularly depressed. And it just took me out. I love it to this day.

Speaker 430:21

Say all the pretty girls come from Louisville. No, no, they come from yesterday.

Speaker 430:28

And all the sweet girls come from Baltimore.

Speaker 430:32

Yeah.

Speaker 430:35

Yeah.

Speaker 430:36

Amazing.

Speaker 430:37

Ain't y'all handsome that's Memphis, Tennessee.

Speaker 430:42

Here all the cool girls come from Chicago. No no, they come from Memphis. And all the movie stars come from Hollywood. Oh yeah, but they were born in Memphis.

Presenter30:53

That was Donnie Brooks and Memphis. Um, Dustin Hoffman, you've you've had a long and happy well, I think what do I know about it? I think happy marriage. It looks happy from the outside. I heard you say to an interviewer that, you know, your your marriage works'cause you're scared of your wife.

Dustin Hoffman31:06

Actually, I stole that line from my friend Murray Shiskell, who co-wrote Tootsie, and he once was talking about marriage, and he said the only way a marriage can be successful is the husband is scared shitless of his wife. But there's something profound in that, because I think it's not in our DNA to have a nest and to have children and be there every minute. And I think we have to, you know, to commit ourselves to a home takes much more diligence and discipline. And I think if our wife doesn't somehow intimidate us, saying, you know, you stray once and I'm out of here, that marriage is not going to work. So it is a kind of frivolous statement, but it has a basis of some truth.

Presenter31:49

And as you said earlier, you're father to five uh children. What about the line? You said that, you know, you asked your father, you were fifty, he was eighty, you're walking on the beach and you said to him, you know, how would you sum it up? And he said, you know, and I said it's all bullshit. So your son says to you,

Dustin Hoffman31:59

And that's all bullshit.

Presenter32:05

But how would you sum it up?

Dustin Hoffman32:06

Follow your passion. Don't get trapped in the culture, because making it in my day was simply making a living. And today it jumps straight to celebrity. I mean, you can have a sex tape put on, which in my day would end your career, and today it makes your career. And I say, please keep reminding yourself that nothing is permanent. I have one son who's just reading literature day and night and writing poetry. And he just said to me the other day, I'd like to go back to graduate school. I think I want to teach. And that's the best advice I think I've ever given.

Presenter32:42

Dustin, I could listen to you all day and I'm sure our listeners could too, but unfortunately we've got to move on. You know I'm going to cast you away at the end of this. How will you cope on the desert island on your own?

Dustin Hoffman32:43

We are listening.

Dustin Hoffman32:51

Well, I get up pre-dawn, about 4.30 in the morning. I greet the dawn with a cup of coffee and the dogs, you know, taking them out. And it is the most treasured time I have each day. It is my desert island day. Uh yes, I could live on a desert island by myself if I had to. My assistant is here and she's probably laughing in her cups now because I'm so dependent on people to remind me to take my glasses and my keys.

Presenter33:19

We're going to come to that because after the final piece of music, I give you a chance to take some luxuries. So don't tell me what they're going to be just now. Do tell me about your final piece of music, though, your eighth disc of the morning. What is it and why have you chosen it?

Dustin Hoffman33:19

Because half

Dustin Hoffman33:21

I give you a chance to take some love.

Dustin Hoffman33:29

Well, I just did a film called Quartet, and in that film is a song that was sung by Flanagan and Allen, and it's ironic because it happens at a moment in the film where someone might be dying at the home. And it really sums up the spirit of what this film is when you hear it sung by elderly people. And it speaks for itself.

Speaker 433:55

Oh yeah, having any laughs.

Dustin Hoffman33:56

Maybe

Speaker 433:58

Are you getting over loving if other people do? How can you have a little fun?

Dustin Hoffman34:02

By the P

Speaker 434:08

After the honey's in the clone, Little bees go out and play, Even the old grey mare down home

Dustin Hoffman34:09

Turbah

Dustin Hoffman34:13

Please go out and play

Presenter34:16

Even the old grey mare down home

Dustin Hoffman34:19

Yeah.

Speaker 434:19

Has gotta have hay! Are you having any fun?

Presenter34:25

That was Are You Having Any Fun? sung by Trevor Peacock and David Ryle. So we come to the point, Dustin, where I'm going to give you the books. You get to take the Bible and the complete works of Shakespeare and one other book. What what would you like it to be?

Dustin Hoffman34:39

Do I have to take the uh Bible?

Presenter34:40

No, you don't, you don't have to take it.

Dustin Hoffman34:42

I've never read it, so.

Presenter34:42

Uh

Presenter34:43

No. I'm offering you it. You can do what you want.

Dustin Hoffman34:44

I'm offering

Dustin Hoffman34:45

All right. Uh I I do plan to read it one day and have somebody really explain it to me as I'm as I'm reading it. So I probably would pick Dickens, the complete works of Dickens.

Presenter34:50

Yeah.

Presenter34:55

You may have that. You're also allowed on this island on your own, where we know you'll be happy, to have a luxury to make life a bit more enjoyable. What will your luxury be?

Dustin Hoffman34:55

Yeah.

Dustin Hoffman35:04

Wow, an endless supply of gin, of vodka, of tequila.

Presenter35:07

Yeah, you could have a full bar.

Dustin Hoffman35:10

That might not be a bad idea.

Presenter35:11

I'll give you the bar from the writs. There you are. Thank you. I'm a happy man. And if you had to pick just one of the eight to save from the waves, which one would you pick?

Dustin Hoffman35:13

Thank you. I'm a happy man.

Dustin Hoffman35:20

Or, without question, I would pick Are You Having Any Fun?

Presenter35:24

Dustin Hoffman, Ian, thank you very much for letting us hear your desert island diss.

Dustin Hoffman35:27

Aw, thank you uh for inviting me. I really mean it.

Presenter36:05

You've been listening to a download from the BBC. You'll find more information on the Radio 4 website: bbc.co.uk slash Radio 4.