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Dustin Hoffman has said he had a 'terrible experience' filming The Graduate despite the part being his breakthrough role in Hollywood.
The actor, 89, revealed he was slapped 27 times by his co-star Katharine Ross, at the instruction of the director Mike Nichols, who he described as a 'sadist'.
Dustin claimed that he felt anxious working with Mike and he grew suspicious that he 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'.
In an extract from his new memoir Look At Me, published by The New Yorker, Dustin 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.'
Dustin Hoffman has said he had a 'terrible experience' filming The Graduate despite the part being his breakthrough role in Hollywood (pictured in the film with co-star Anne Bancroft)
The actor, 89, revealed he was slapped 27 times by his co-star Katharine Ross, at the instruction of the director Mike Nichols (pictured 2013), who he described as a 'sadist'.
Mike, who died of a heart attack in 2014, shot to prominence in his field the year before The Graduate (1967) was filmed after directing comedy-drama adaptation Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
Dustin landed the role in The Graduate as Benjamin Braddock after a lengthy two-year casting process.
The classic film follows Benjamin, a recent college graduate who is seduced by an older married woman, Mrs Robinson (Anne Bancroft), but falls for her daughter, Elaine (Katharine Ross).
But Dustin has now 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 actor, 89, revealed he was slapped 27 times by his co-star Katharine Ross, at the instruction of the director Mike Nichols, who he described as a 'sadist'
Dustin said that while Mike was 'irritable with everyone' he believes he reserved a 'certain sadism' while dealing 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.'
Dustin went on to say he has reconsidered Mike's behaviour over the years.
He came to believe that Mike was using Benjamin as a kind of alter ego, projecting his own emotional difficulties and self-loathing onto the character.
Dustin suggested that he himself had become a stand-in for Mike's personal struggles.
His memoir, Look At Me, is due to be published on November 10, 2026.
English (US) ·