Making 'The Graduate' was a 'terrible experience,' Dustin Hoffman reveals in New Yorker essay

Actor Dustin Hoffman has said that making 'The Graduate' was a 'terrible experience' for him. In a recent essay written for The New Yorker, the 89-year-old actor said the film 'exacerbated all my insecurities from the start.'

The film earned him his first Academy Award nomination and a BAFTA Award win. Yet on set he felt immediately uncomfortable and unworthy from the start.

Hoffman wrote: '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.'

He felt he was wrong for the part from the beginning. He admitted he 'didn't even want to try out for the part,' saying it was obvious to him after reading the novel the film is based on '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.'

A big part of what made the experience so bad was his relationship with the director. In Hoffman's words, Nichols was 'irritable with everyone' and was 'frequently sour' on set.

The director's attitude often left Hoffman feeling that he was about to be fired, as he found himself thinking he had no idea what he was doing while filming some of the movie's most well-known scenes.

Hoffman also recalled feeling as if the director had a 'certain sadism' that was directed mostly towards him.

He gave one example. In a scene in which Katharine Ross had to slap him, Nichols made them do twenty-seven takes. The scene has Benjamin run into Elaine's room, soaking wet from the rain, to tell her that he has had an affair with an older woman; within seconds, Elaine realizes the woman is her mother.

Hoffman wrote: '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.'

The next day, Hoffman was scheduled to film a scene underwater, which left him with blood trickling out of his ear. It later turned out to be a punctured eardrum.

In 'The Graduate,' Hoffman's Benjamin is a recent college graduate struggling to find direction after graduation, who is seduced by an older housewife played by Anne Bancroft — a friend of his parents.

Following its release in 1967, the film was nominated for seven Academy Awards, including best actor for Hoffman and best actress for Bancroft. Nichols ultimately won the statue for best director.

Despite the ordeal, 'The Graduate' went on to become one of Hoffman's most well-known films, and it remains a milestone in the career of the 'Rain Man' star.