Dustin Hoffman: Making 'The Graduate' Was 'a Terrible Experience' — 27 Slaps, a Punctured Eardrum, and a Scene That Never Made the Cut

Dustin Hoffman spent decades as one of the defining faces of American cinema, and it started with a film he never wanted to make, directed by a man he came to experience as cruel, on a set that left him dizzy, bleeding, and convinced he was about to be fired. Nearly 60 years after The Graduate reached theaters, the 89-year-old actor has put that account on the record.

In an essay for The New Yorker, drawn from his forthcoming memoir Look at Me — co-written with New Yorker staff writer Ariel Levy — Hoffman describes the 1967 production as 'a terrible experience' that 'exacerbated all my insecurities from the start,' even as the finished film earned him his first Oscar nomination and rewrote his career.

It was a terrible experience making the movie that changed my life.— Dustin Hoffman, actor

The most visceral episode Hoffman recounts involves a scene in which his co-star Katharine Ross, playing Elaine Robinson, slaps his character Ben after he confesses to an affair with her mother. Director Mike Nichols kept the cameras rolling and kept pushing Ross to hit harder. They went through 27 takes. Ross worried about hurting Hoffman; she missed his face a few times and caught him near the ear. By the end of the day he was dizzy. Nichols did not put the slap in the finished film.

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 realises 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 OK. 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 Hoffman, actor

The following day brought an underwater scuba sequence filmed in a swimming pool. After several takes, Hoffman surfaced with blood coming from his ear. He attributed the injury to the combination of the previous day's blows and the water pressure at the bottom of the pool.

When I came up for air after a few takes, there was blood trickling out of my ear. Between all the slapping during the previous day and all the water pressure at the bottom of the pool, I'd punctured an eardrum.— Dustin Hoffman, actor

The physical toll was matched, in Hoffman's telling, by a persistent psychological unease rooted in casting. When his agent told him Nichols was interested, Hoffman did not want to screen-test. He had read Charles Webb's novel and saw Benjamin Braddock as an affluent, all-American track star — a WASP archetype he felt bore no resemblance to himself.

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. 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.— Dustin Hoffman, actor

He took the screen test and won the role, but the unease followed him onto the set. According to The Guardian's account of the memoir, Hoffman recalls sitting in hair and makeup for hours while Nichols gave instructions to change his appearance — asking whether something could be done with his eyebrows, noting his neck looked too thick, and eventually asking what could be done about his nose.

I remember thinking, They're trying to take the Jew off my face, and it ain't going to happen. All I wanted to do was go home, to ethnic New York, where I belonged. I knew I was no leading man. I knew my place.— Dustin Hoffman, actor

Hoffman describes Nichols as warm and encouraging during weeks of rehearsal, then transformed once cameras rolled — difficult to read, changeable in mood, and 'frequently sour.' According to The Daily Beast's account of the memoir, Nichols had also told Hoffman's friend, theater director Ulu Grosbard, that he regretted hiring Hoffman.

The whole time, I felt Mike 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.— Dustin Hoffman, actor

The memoir also describes other physical extremes on set. Anne Bancroft, who played Mrs. Robinson, fainted on a hot day and had to be resuscitated with oxygen, according to The Guardian. Hoffman himself was made to run repeatedly from his car to a church for the film's climactic scene until he lay down in the grass, fearing he would lose consciousness from exhaustion and dehydration.

Reflecting on the experience six decades later, Hoffman offers a theory about why Nichols was so hard on him specifically. Nichols, who came to the United States from Germany in 1939 as a young Jewish boy, had spent two years casting the lead — seeing actors including Robert Redford before settling on Hoffman. Hoffman now reads that difficulty as something more personal.

He was looking for an alter ego – that's why Benjamin had taken years to cast, and maybe that's why he was so hard on me. I was a stand-in, there to absorb Mike's own self-loathing.— Dustin Hoffman, actor

The Graduate was released on December 22, 1967, received seven Oscar nominations, and won Nichols the Academy Award for Best Director at the 40th ceremony. Hoffman went on to win Best Actor Oscars for Kramer vs. Kramer (1979) and Rain Man (1989). Mike Nichols died in 2014 and is not able to respond to the account. Katharine Ross is not quoted in any of the outlet reports on the memoir.

Hoffman's memoir Look at Me is scheduled for publication on November 10.

Why it matters — One of cinema's most celebrated origin stories now has a very different account from its lead — one involving physical injury, ethnic erasure, and a director's unresolved self-loathing — told by the only surviving principal nearly 60 years on.

Reported by variety.com, theguardian.com, thedailybeast.com, americanalmanac.com, huffingtonpost.co.uk