Among his seven Academy Award nominations, two became statues: the one for Kramer vs. Kramer and the one for Barry Levinson’s Rain Man, in which he portrayed Tom Cruise’s autistic brother. Today Dustin Hoffman, through the pages of his autobiography “Look at Me“, reveals that the filming was particularly difficult for him. It wasn’t just about pedantically imitating a condition: he would not wear Raymond’s shoes without understanding him from within. The path was arduous, leading up to an improvisation born by chance.
Dustin Hoffman Found Raymond in Rain Man After an Improvisation with Tom Cruise
Charlie (Tom Cruise) in Rain Man — a 1988 crowd favorite and critical success — is a hedonistic man who discovers he has an autistic brother, Raymond (Dustin Hoffman), the heir Charlie believes is rightfully his: he abducts him from the clinic where he resides to try to obtain his custody, but naturally interacting with him is not easy, especially for someone as self-centered as Charlie. A quintessential Eighties classic, Rain Man earned eight Oscar nominations, winning four—Best Picture, Best Director, Original Screenplay, and precisely for Hoffman‘s performance, which Hoffman himself now confesses: “I almost quit Rain Man, because I couldn’t find the character. I felt ridiculous, utterly false. I remember watching the dailies with Barry Levinson, the director, and thinking: what a mess, I have to go.” Fortunately, Levinson supported him during production, until one day they shot a car scene, semi-improvised at the director’s wish: “Tom embodied Charlie Babbitt, improvising wonderfully, and he would ask me: Do you understand, Ray? Have you got it, Ray? But I was stuck, I could only say: yes, yes. I realized I had no idea what Raymond was thinking. I couldn’t understand this autistic person. I didn’t know what the hell else to say besides: yes, yes.” Convinced he had hit bottom, Hoffman, however, felt the spark ignite when he watched that footage again: “There he was. Overwhelmed, hyper-focused, insecure, striving with all his might to do what was expected of him, without truly understanding what it was about.” Dustin then kept that key for the rest of the shoot.
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