Dustin Hoffman has described making Mike Nichols’ 1967 film The Graduate as a “terrible experience,” despite saying it changed his life. He shared his memories in an essay for The New Yorker; Hoffman played Benjamin Braddock.
Hoffman wrote that he felt uncomfortable and unworthy from the start, and believed he was wrong for the role. He saw Benjamin as an affluent, athletic, straight-A student and said he could not understand why someone who looked like him had been cast. His agent persuaded him to screen-test, and he eventually got the part.
The actor also recalled that Nichols was often sour on set. Hoffman said he frequently worried that he was about to be fired, and felt that the director showed a particular harshness toward him, even though he was irritable with others too.
