Entertainment Weekly - October 20, 2017

Movies

76 EW.COM OCTOBER 20/27, 2017



Dustin

Hoffman

and Adam

Sandler

The Meyerowitz Stories (New and Selected)—available on

Netflix and in theaters—offers Dustin Hoffman the perfect

showcase as a family’s wise patriarch. The 80-year-old legend

tells EW about facing rejection and dining with Adam Sandler.

BY SARA VILKOMERSON

Were you familiar with direc-

tor Noah Baumbach’s work

before doing this movie?

Yes, I had seenThe Squid and

the Whale, which is just

extraordinary. One of my sons,

Jake, got down to the last audi-

tion and lost the part to Jesse

Eisenberg. Noah sent him a let-

ter—I’ve never heard of a direc-

tor doing this—and told him it

was because he didn’t look

young enough. It was so lovely.

Itakeityounevergotaletter

whenyoudidn’tgetapart?

What? No. I was one of those

actors where you can’t even

get through the audition with-

out ”Thank you,next!”

What did you think when you

first read the script for this?

Studios tend to say that a

script is a minute [of film] per

page. This is not true of Noah.

His movie comes in at an hour

and 50 minutes, but the script

is 172 pages! He just has his

own rhythm. So I get this tome

and—you want the truth?

Of course!

It’s poetic justice. Life, I mean.

You start out as an actor like I

did, and we all get the same

“Thank you,next!” I mean, they

did that to me as we were cut-

tingThe Graduate. I had come

back to New York because

I had no money, and I was

going to auditions while [direc-

tor Mike Nichols] was cutting

for four months. I got two

sentences out and that was it:

“Thank you,next!” But anyway,

if you’re lucky you get a part

and you say to your friends,

“I got 30 lines!” You count the

sentences. And if you graduate

from that to a supporting role,

it doesn’t get better. If you are

one in a million, you get the

lead role. And if you are good,

or rather, if the film is success-

ful, you work again. That’s how

it works in that town. I got

lucky and had lead roles for a

number of years. And sud-

denly—or not so suddenly, but

it feels sudden—I no longer get

leads. I’ve reached an age, and

I’ve reached all the ages so far,

where it’s tough to even get a

supporting role because you’re

too old. Suddenly I started

getting a spate of scripts

where my agent said the same

thing: “I read this script, and it

is very good, and so-and-so is

the lead, and you only work

four days because you die of

cancer.” There was, like, six

of these in a row!

No, it can’t be.

Okay, sometimes it was a heart

attack. [Laughs] Usually the

death is off camera, so you

don’t even get the aria. So here

comes this tome of 172 pages,

and I’m told similar things. But

this time it was a tumor. So the

truth is, I heard that, skimmed

it, and turned it down.

What changed your mind?

My son Jake, who is brilliant.

He’s a very smart actor and

director, and he just loves

Baumbach’s work. He heard

I had turned it down and said,

“Are you f---ing crazy?” So then

I read it more carefully, and

it’s fantastic, and I met with

Noah, and we just hit it off right

away. So I’m very glad to have

been wrong. It was, overall,

a fantastic time.

There are all these connec-

tions: Ben Stiller is old friends

with Adam Sandler, Ben also

starredinNoahBaumbach’s

Greenbergand with you in

Meet the Fockers.

But I’ve known Sandler longer—

I think 20 years or whenever it

was he didBilly Madison.Isaw

that movie with my kids and I

remember thinking, “Who is

that kid?” He was very young,

but I knew he had something.

My kids said to me, “Dad, we’ve

never bothered you before, but

would you invite him to din-

ner?” I said, “Sure.” What’s his

name? Adam Sandler. I said

I’d never heard of him.

Wasn’t he fairly famous on

SNLat that point?

Probably, but I never watched

it because I go to sleep. He

said yes to dinner, but that

night he’s 10 minutes late.

Twenty minutes late. Forty-five

minutes late. An hour. My kids

thought that maybe he mixed

up the day. But the bell rings,

and he said he was sorry, but

he had all these fishy answers.

After we got to know each

other—that night at dinner we

had an immediate connection,

a cohesion—he admitted to me

that he was so nervous that he

stayed in the car for an hour.

That is pretty sweet.

Yes. I think he’s very shy, basi-

cally, don’t you? He’s such a

good actor, and a lot of good

actors are really quite shy.

Dustin Hoffman

Tells the Truth

ATSUSHI NISHIJIMA/NETFLIX