Dustin Hoffman Says Filming ‘The Graduate’ Was a ‘Terrible Experience’ and Director Mike Nichols Made Katharine Ross Slap Him 27 Times for a Scene He ‘Didn’t Even Use’

Nov 1, 2026 4:34pm PT Dustin Hoffman Says Filming ‘The Graduate’ Was a ‘Terrible Experience’ and Director Mike Nichols Made Katharine Ross Slap Him 27 Times for a Scene He ‘Didn’t Even Use’

By Payton Turkeltaub

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Payton Turkeltaub

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Dustin Hoffman, who shot to fame after starring as Ben Braddock in Mike Nichols’ classic film “The Graduate,” has opened up about his experience shooting the 1967 comedy-drama in a recent essay for The New Yorker, which he described as having been a “terrible experience” despite the fact that the movie changed his life.

“I felt immediately uncomfortable, unworthy. Here I was, playing a starring role in a movie by Mike Nichols, who was the director of the moment, but I felt like I had no right to be there,” writes Hoffman early in the piece of his time on set. “It was a terrible experience making the movie that changed my life.” Much of his anxiety stemmed from worrying that Nichols “was angry at me, either because I was doing something wrong or because he had realized what everybody else already knew, that he had miscast the lead in his film.”

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