Dustin Hoffman said during a recent film festival appearance that he believes America is as divided as it was during the Vietnam War.
The veteran actor was speaking at Karlovy Vary Film Festival in the Czech Republic on Saturday (July 4) following a screening of his 1967 comedy-drama The Graduate. The movie, which propelled the actor to stardom, saw him play a young college graduate whose life is thrown in a different direction when he is seduced by an older woman (Anne Bancroft).
Hoffman, who received the Crystal Globe for Outstanding Artistic Contribution to World Cinema at the opening ceremony of the festival, introduced the film and was asked by the festival’s artistic director, Karel Och, how it might inspire people in their 20s nowadays, whose prospects are vastly different to those coming of age in the late 1960s.
“It’s actually the same,” he replied (via Variety), “because the book by Charles Webb was written in 1964, which was before the Vietnam crisis, which divided America, as it is divided today actually.”
US military involvement in Vietnam escalated between 1965 and 1973, with the conflict dividing a nation through protests and debates.
Elsewhere in the talk, Hoffman discussed how he landed the lead role in The Graduate. “It was an accident, and that’s the truth,” he said.
“Mike Nichols, who was the director of the moment, he was like Spielberg is today, he had spent almost two years looking for this person that was to be The Graduate and after two years – I know this because he wrote it later in his autobiography – he was willing to say, ‘We can’t make it,’ and he was going to not make the film.”
He continued: “Literally the last day he was going to see people it was my turn and Katharine Ross’ turn. Had we been there two years before, we would not have gotten the role. The people that would have been there the day that we were, they would have gotten the role, and that’s the truth. It’s all luck.”
Last year, Dustin Hoffman led the tributes to Gene Hackman following his death aged 95. The pair were roommates and close friends throughout their career, with Hoffman describing Hackman as a “genius” and “a giant among actors”.
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