Tootsie = Epiphany


This emotional three minute interview with Dustin Hoffman has gone viral on Youtube.  Hoffman said he’d initially had doubts about making the movie Tootsie unless he could be made to look like a beautiful woman.  In the moment he was told that he was as attractive as he was going to get as a woman, the actor said he had an epiphany.

“I went home and started crying, talking to my wife, and I said, ‘I have to make this picture,’” Hoffman said, choking up as he recalled his reaction. “And she said, ‘Why?’ And I said, ‘Because 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.’

“She says, ‘What are you saying?’ And I said, ‘There’s too many interesting women I have … not had the experience to know in this life because I have been brainwashed. And that was never a comedy for me,” he said.

Hoffman, 75, has been nominated for seven Academy Awards, winning two for his performances in Kramer vs. Kramer and Rain Main.  His other notable films include Midnight Cowboy, Little Big Man, Papillon, All The President’s Men, Tootsie, Hook and Wag the Dog.


Source: Thank you (again) Lori @ Donna & Diablo.  Moved.  Full stop.

22 thoughts on “Tootsie = Epiphany

  1. WOW! Thanks for posting this, David. I shared it on Facebook. He is so aware of playing more than a character. That is what a great actor does and he is one of the great ones. I watched this shortly after I read the comment John Inverdale made when Marion Bartoli won Wimbledon (“she’s never going to be a looker”). What an idiot!! I loved Marion’s response, “Have I dreamt about having a modeling contract? No. But have I dreamed about winning Wimbledon? Absolutely, yes.”. Yes!

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  2. So glad that this spoke to you as it did to me, pal. I cried as I watched. People are too conditioned to make snap judgements based on appearance, myself included. I applaud Hoffman for his candor–great actor, greater human being…..

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