Dustin Hoffman’s Sweat-Stained Handshake Sealed His Role in The Graduate

Dustin Hoffman arrived in Los Angeles with no sleep and ten pages of dialogue memorized. He was staying with his parents in the city, but the constant criticism from his father pushed him to the Chateau Marmont, where the cast and crew were based. He felt alienated in the house where he grew up, a feeling that mirrored the character he was about to play. The pool area at the hotel looked like a cabana party on Mount Olympus to him. He felt unworthy among the palm trees, despite playing a starring role for director Mike Nichols.

Hoffman initially resisted the role. He had read the Charles Webb novel and knew Benjamin Braddock was meant to be an affluent, all-American track star. He saw himself as too ethnic for the part. His agent convinced him to audition anyway. He walked to his neighbor Mel Brooks’s window on Eleventh Street to share the news. Brooks asked what part it was. Hoffman replied that it was the lead. Brooks said good luck and kept him posted.

The audition process was long. The Westmore brothers, famous makeup artists, spent hours working on his face. They plucked his eyebrows to make two distinct ones. They put him in a turtleneck to hide his neck. Mike Nichols asked what they would do about the nose. Hoffman thought they were trying to remove the Jewish look from his face. He wanted to go home to New York.

The screen test with Katharine Ross was difficult. Nichols wanted to shoot a ten-minute scene in one take. Both actors kept making mistakes. Nichols told Hoffman to relax, saying the curtain was not opening. Hoffman shook the director’s hand and felt it was slippery with sweat. He realized Nichols was more anxious than he was. The film’s editor, Sam O’Steen, later said the screen test looked like an ugly boy playing the part. Co-screenwriter Buck Henry said the producers had hoped to cast Ronald Reagan and Doris Day as the parents to explain the character’s look.

Hoffman returned to New York feeling relieved. His agent told him to call Nichols at nine o’clock on Sunday morning. It was snowing. Hoffman called at nine A.M. New York time and woke the director up. He mumbled an apology. There was a long silence. Nichols said, “Well, you got it.” Hoffman hung up the phone feeling stunned. His girlfriend, holding a spatula, said she knew he would get the part.

Nichols later told biographer Mark Harris that Hoffman had a quality he had only seen in Elizabeth Taylor. He described the actor as compelling, hilarious, and impassive. The film required three weeks of rehearsal, which was unusual for a movie. Nichols directed Hoffman to start from zero, drawing on his adolescence and acne. He asked Hoffman if he thought Benjamin was a virgin. Hoffman said no, but that he had never slept with his mother’s friend. Nichols used that response for the scene in the hotel lobby. He asked Hoffman to think of the hotel clerk as a female pharmacist. Hoffman held his breath and let out small squeaks during the scene. Nichols liked the effect so much that he added extra squeaks in the final edit.