A role he doubted he should have
Dustin Hoffman, who became a star as Ben Braddock in Mike Nichols' 1967 comedy-drama The Graduate, has described the shoot as a terrible experience in an essay for The New Yorker, even while acknowledging that the film altered his life. He writes that he felt uneasy and undeserving from the outset, believing he had no claim to a leading part in a movie by a director then at the height of his reputation.[S1][S2]
Much of that discomfort, he explains, came from suspecting that Nichols resented him, whether because of a mistake on set or because the director had concluded he had chosen the wrong actor for the lead. Hoffman also recalls doubting the casting himself: after reading Charles Webb's novel, he thought Benjamin Braddock, a track athlete, straight-A student and debate-team leader from an affluent all-American family, was a poor match for him, and he says he initially did not even want to audition. His agent pressed him to screen-test, and he won the part.[S1]
A changed mood and a punishing slap scene
Rehearsals and shooting felt like different worlds, according to Hoffman. He writes that Nichols, who had been different in preparation, was often sour once cameras rolled, a shift the actor calls shocking and destabilizing, and that he frequently expected to be let go. During some of the film's best-known sequences, Hoffman remembers being unsure what he was doing. He adds that while the director was short-tempered with the whole company, he sensed a cruelty directed only at him.[S1]
Hoffman singles out the scene in which Katharine Ross, as Elaine, slaps Benjamin after he arrives soaked from the rain to confess an affair with an older woman and she grasps that the woman is her mother. He says Nichols had Ross strike him 27 times, urging her to hit harder. Ross feared hurting him, and Hoffman told her he was fine but asked her to avoid his ear; she missed the target on several attempts. He recalls being dizzy by the end of the day, and notes that the slap does not appear in the finished film.[S1]
The next day brought an underwater sequence that required Hoffman to remain submerged in a scuba suit. After surfacing from several takes, he writes, he noticed blood running from his ear; he attributes a punctured eardrum to the repeated slaps and the water pressure at the pool's bottom. The Graduate reached theaters on Dec. 22, 1967, following a disillusioned young graduate caught between an older lover, played by Anne Bancroft, and her daughter, played by Ross. It earned seven Oscar nominations and took best picture at the 40th Academy Awards.[S1]
