The Physical Cost of a Defining Role
Dustin Hoffman has described the production of the 1967 classic *The Graduate* as a “terrible experience,” revealing that director Mike Nichols compelled co-star Katharine Ross to slap him 27 times during a single scene. In a new essay for *The New Yorker*, the 89-year-old actor detailed the physical injury and emotional anxiety that marked his breakthrough role, noting that the specific slap sequence was ultimately left out of the final cut of the film.
Hoffman’s account, part of his upcoming autobiography *Look at Me*, offers a stark contrast to the film’s celebrated status in cinema history. While the movie launched his career and earned seven Oscar nominations, including a Best Director win for Nichols, Hoffman recalls the set as a place of constant insecurity. He wrote that he felt “immediately uncomfortable, unworthy” playing the lead in a film by what he considered the “director of the moment.”
27 Takes and a Punctured Eardrum
The incident occurred during the filming of a scene where Hoffman’s character, Benjamin Braddock, runs into the room of Ross’s character, Elaine, soaking wet from the rain. The scene depicts Benjamin confessing to an affair with an older woman, only for Elaine to realize the woman is her mother. According to Hoffman, Nichols repeatedly told Ross to hit him and to hit him harder with each take.
“Katharine worried she would hurt me, and I told her, ‘I’m O.K. Just don’t hit my ear,’” Hoffman wrote. “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.” The physical toll worsened the following day when Hoffman filmed an underwater sequence in a scuba suit. He recalled blood trickling from his ear after surfacing for air, attributing the punctured eardrum to the combination of the previous day’s slaps and the water pressure at the bottom of the pool.
Hoffman noted that he held a pool ladder behind his back during the underwater takes to keep himself submerged, a detail that remains in the finished movie. The juxtaposition of the director’s demanding style with the actor’s physical suffering highlights the personal cost behind the performance that made him a star.
Insecurities on a High-Pressure Set
Beyond the physical injury, Hoffman described a psychological environment marked by intense anxiety. He stated that the role “exacerbated all my insecurities from the start,” recalling how he initially resisted the part because he felt he was “all wrong” for Benjamin Braddock. Hoffman, born to an Ashkenazi Jewish family of Russian and Romanian immigrants, viewed the character as an “affluent, all-American kid” and the “ultimate Wasp,” making the casting seem nonsensical to him at the time.
His agent convinced him to screen-test for the role, which he ultimately secured after a two-year process. Once on set, Hoffman said Nichols, who died in 2014, was “frequently sour” and “irritable with everyone.” Hoffman perceived a “certain sadism” in how Nichols treated him specifically, leading the actor to frequently believe he was about to be fired. “I often felt that I was about to be fired. When we were shooting some of the film’s most famous sequences, I remember thinking, I have no fucking idea what I’m doing,” he wrote.
Legacy of a Breakthrough Film
*The Graduate* first hit theaters on December 22, 1967. The film follows a disillusioned college graduate torn between his older lover, Mrs. Robinson, played by Anne Bancroft, and her daughter, Elaine. The production was a critical and commercial success, earning seven Oscar nominations. Nichols won the award for Best Director at the 40th Academy Awards, while Hoffman received his first Best Actor nomination.
The film’s legacy endures, though it is not currently available on Netflix. It can be watched for free on services such as The Roku Channel. For Hoffman, the success of the film did not erase the difficult conditions under which it was made. He later won Oscars for *Kramer vs. Kramer* and *Rain Man*, but he continues to describe the *Graduate* shoot through the lens of anxiety and physical exhaustion rather than as a happy recollection of his rise to fame.
Hoffman’s autobiography, *Look at Me*, is scheduled for publication on November 10.
Sources
- Dustin Hoffman Says Filming ‘The Graduate’ Was a ‘Terrible Experience’ and Director Mike Nichols Made Katharine Ross Slap Him 27 Times for a Scene He ‘Didn’t Even Use’
- Dustin Hoffman ‘slapped 27 times’ during ‘terrible experience’ filming The Graduate
- Dustin Hoffman Recalls 27 Slaps While Making The Graduate
- Dustin Hoffman ‘slapped 27 times’ during ‘terrible experience’ filming The Graduate
- “It Was a Terrible Experience”— Dustin Hoffman Revisits the Movie That Changed His Life
Photo: Studio (Public domain)
