When he heard that he wasn’t very pretty, the now 86-year-old had an epiphany, forever changing how he treats women.
“I went home and started crying,” Hoffman says. “I think I’m an interesting woman when I look at myself on-screen, and I know that if I met myself at a party, I would never talk to that character because she doesn’t fulfill, physically, the demands that we’re brought up to think women have to have in order for us to ask them out.”
Though the comedy was the second highest-grossing film of that year—E.T. The Extraterrestrial landed the top spot—Hoffman didn’t think it was funny.
He adds: “…that was never a comedy for me.”
But Hoffman became one of Hollywood’s most sought-after actors.
Earning his second Oscar for the 1988 film Rain Man, he then went on to collect six Golden Globes and one Primetime Emmy.
