Dustin Hoffman claims he had to go on unemployment after starring in The Graduate after taking home just $3k for iconic movie: 'Basically broke'

Dustin Hoffman is making startling claims about his alleged salary for the blockbuster 1967 film The Graduate.

The 89-year-old actor wrote in his new memoir Look At Me that he 'only took home $3,000 after I paid all my expenses, believe it or not.'

Published on Tuesday, he also noted in the book that he 'had to pay my own way to L.A. for the shoot.'

The author reflected, 'I couldn’t go out in the street without people coming up to touch me and ask for my autograph, but I was still basically broke.'

Hoffman said he later went on unemployment, until an image of him at the office was published in Life magazine, leaving him ashamed.

'I could never go back in there again. I was embarrassed by the dirty looks from other people standing in line who needed the money and assumed I didn’t,' he wrote.

Elsewhere in his literary effort, Hoffman said he had a 'terrible experience' filming The Graduate – even though it was his breakthrough role in Hollywood.

The actor claimed he was slapped 27 times by his co-star Katharine Ross, at the instruction of director Mike Nichols, whom he described as a 'sadist.'

Hoffman said he felt anxious working with Nichols and grew suspicious that he was 'angry at me, either because I was doing something wrong or because he had realized what everybody else already knew, that he had miscast the lead in his film.'

Ahead of his book release, The New Yorker published an excerpt in which the star recalled: '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.

'It was a terrible experience making the movie that changed my life.'

The classic film follows Benjamin Braddock, a newly minted college graduate who is seduced by Mrs Robinson, an older married woman played by Anne Bancroft. However, he falls for her daughter, Elaine (Katharine Ross). 

Hoffman scored the role following a two-year casting process. 

Hoffman said the role 'exacerbated all my insecurities from the start.'

'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,' he wrote.

'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,' the author argued.

Hoffman noted that while Nichols was 'irritable with everyone,' he believes he reserved a 'certain sadism' for his interactions with him on set.

'There was a scene in which Katharine Ross had to slap me, and he made us do 27 takes,' he claimed. 'The scene has Benjamin run into Elaine's room, soaking wet from the rain, to tell her that he's had an affair with an older woman; within seconds, Elaine realizes the woman is her mother.

'Mike just kept telling Katharine to hit me, to hit me harder. Katharine worried she would hurt me, and I told her, "I'm O.K. Just don't hit my ear." Unfortunately, she missed a few times. I was dizzy by the end of that day, and Mike didn't even use the slap in the film.'

Hoffman went on to say he has reassessed Nichols's behavior over the years.

He came to believe that the director was using the character Benjamin as an alter ego, and projecting his own emotional difficulties and self-loathing onto him.